3 guilty of phony marriage scheme

Two men and a woman accused of participating in a marriage fraud scam designed to help Chinese citizens enter the United States were convicted Monday by a St. Paul federal court jury.

Mingwen Yang, 26; Guangping Lin, 29; and Yanxia Teng, 24, were found guilty of one count each of committing marriage fraud and one count each of aiding and abetting marriage fraud. The fraud involved arranging phony marriages between U.S. and Chinese citizens to circumvent U.S. immigration laws and to allow the Chinese citizens into this country. According to the indictments in the case, U.S. citizens would be paid as much as $25,000, minus travel expenses, to travel to China and enter into phony marriages.

All three are Chinese citizens, while some of the U.S. defendants are Hmong, said Lee Johnson, attorney for Yang.

They were indicted in April, along with 40 other defendants in the case. Twenty-one of those have already pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy, according to the U.S. Attorney's office for Minnesota. The remaining 19 defendants have not appeared in court yet. Two men accused of arranging the fraudulent marriages have already been sentenced to prison terms.

According to the news release issued by the U.S. Attorney's office, the three convicted Monday were involved in "a massive marriage fraud operation that was centered in the Twin Cities."

"The goal of this conspiracy was for individuals to profit by assisting Chinese nationals in illegally obtaining visas and other immigration benefits," U.S. Attorney Frank J. Magill said in a prepared statement. "These convictions and plea agreements prove that the lies and deceit used by some to violate our nation's immigration laws won't be tolerated, and that we will maintain the integrity of our nation's borders by prosecuting these types of crimes."

U.S. Attorney's office spokesman David Anderson said there would be no further comment on the case.

Those convicted Monday could face up to five years in prison on each of the two counts. A sentencing date has not been set.

Johnson said it was too early to say whether his client would appeal.

"Our position in the trial was that he was innocent," Johnson said. "You can disagree with the jury verdict, but we certainly had a fair shot to put our evidence in. It was a well-tried case."

The marriage fraud cases are the result of an investigation by several agencies, including the U.S. Secret Service, U.S. State Department's Diplomatic Security Service, Hennepin County Sheriff's Office and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office of investigations in Bloomington.