San Jose Businesswoman Sentenced To Prison For High-Technology Worker Visa Fraud
SAN JOSE - San Jose businesswoman Sridevi Aiyaswamy was sentenced to 13 months in prison today as a result of her involvement in executing an H-1B visa fraud scheme, announced U.S. Attorney Brian J. Stretch and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Special Agent in Charge Ryan Spradlin. The sentence was handed down by the Honorable Lucy H. Koh, United States District Judge, after Aiyaswamy pleaded guilty to the crime on July 19, 2017.
According to her plea agreement, Aiyaswamy, 50, of San Jose, pleaded guilty to three counts of visa fraud. Aiyaswamy admitted that between April 2010 and June 2013 she made numerous false statements and submitted over 25 fraudulent documents to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to obtain H-1B non-immigrant classifications for skilled foreign workers. Acting as a petitioner on behalf of foreign worker beneficiaries, Aiyaswamy falsely represented in I-129 petitions that the foreign worker beneficiaries would be working at an information technology and networking company in San Jose, Calif. Aiayswamy further submitted counterfeit statements of work with forged signatures as back-up documentation to the I-129 petitions. In fact, at the time she submitted these documents to USCIS, Aiyaswamy knew that the statements regarding offers of work from the South Bay company for these beneficiaries were false statements, and that the company had not made any offers of employment regarding these individuals.
A federal grand jury indicted Aiyaswamy on December 3, 2015, charging her with 34 counts of visa fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1546(a). Pursuant to her plea agreement, Aiyaswamy pleaded guilty to three of the counts of visa fraud and the remaining counts were dismissed.
In addition to the prison term, Judge Koh sentenced Aiyaswamy to a $10,000 fine and a three-year period of supervised release. Judge Koh ordered the defendant to self-surrender by on February 14, 2018.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys John Bostic and Jeff Nedrow are prosecuting the case with the aid of Mimi Lam, Laurie Worthen and Susan Kreider. The prosecution is the result of an investigation led by HSI. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service’s Office of Fraud Detection and National Security at the California Service Center and the San Francisco Field Office also assisted with the investigation.