Local News

Duluth attorney gets prison for immigration fraud

By Ty Tagami
March 22, 2010

A Duluth attorney was sentenced Monday to federal prison for helping clients commit immigration fraud.

Sai Hyun Lee, 63, pleaded guilty in November to filing false documents with the federal government, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Georgia.

She filed false documents 17 times to help clients obtain legal resident status in the United States, and she must serve a year and a day in prison, U.S. Attorney Sally Quillian Yates said. She also will lose her Georgia law license and must forfeit the $100,000 she charged her clients for the immigration help.

Lee's ploy involved substituting a client's name on a labor certificate approved for a different foreign worker and for a company that her client did not intend to work for, Yates said.

About the Author

Ty Tagami is a staff writer for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Since joining the newspaper in 2002, he has written about everything from hurricanes to homelessness. He has deep experience covering local government and education, and can often be found under the Gold Dome when lawmakers meet or in a school somewhere in the state.

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