Gulfport, Miss - Michael V. Lombardi, 41, a resident of Royal Palm Beach, Florida, was sentenced this week to serve 51 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release for conspiracy to commit fraud in foreign labor contracting, false statements, and visa fraud, announced U.S. Attorney Gregory K. Davis and Raymond R. Parmer, Special Agent in Charge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations in New Orleans. Lombardi was also ordered to pay $197,000 to 29 victims, pay a $10,000 fine, and forfeit $41,480 in U.S. currency and $8,448.37 seized from his home and bank accounts in Florida.

From January 2009 and continuing through April 2010, Lombardi, owner of U.S. Opportunities, a business that provides temporary foreign workers to U.S. companies, fraudulently obtained temporary work visas under the H-2B visa program and placed the workers with U.S. companies not authorized to employ the foreign workers. At Lombardi’s direction, some of the foreign workers utilizing fraudulently obtained visas were employed by companies in Mississippi.

"Mr. Lombardi not only defrauded the U.S. government by illegally acquiring work visas, his actions also reduced the supply of jobs available to American citizens in this very tough economy," said Raymond R. Parmer Jr., special agent in charge of HSI New Orleans. "Thanks to the excellent work done by HSI and Department of Labor investigators, his criminal schemes have come to an end with this sentence." Parmer oversees HSI activities in Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana and Tennessee

This case was investigated by ICE Homeland Security Investigations and the Department of Labor, Office of Inspector General, Office of Labor Racketeering and Fraud Investigations. It was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Annette Williams.

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