City Attorney’s Office Protects Immigrant Community

Two more immigration consultants were recently convicted by the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office as part of crackdown by task force combating fraud against immigrant community.

Two more people — one from Lincoln Heights and the other from La Habra — were fined after being convicted recently in Immigration Consultant Task Force cases being prosecuted by Los Angeles City Attorney Jim Hahn.

These recent cases followed a previous conviction days before when Roger Martinez, 45, of West Covina, who operates Centro Hispano at 2330 W. Olympic Blvd. in the Westlake area, became the first immigration consultant to be convicted in a case filed by Hahn as part of the crackdown by the

multi-agency task force set up to combat fraud against the immigrant community.

In the more recent cases, Nora Antonieta Guzman, 38, of Lincoln Heights, who operates the Immigration Service Center at 855 S. Vermont Ave. in the Wilshire district, and Ana Olga Del Cid Putzeys, 52, of La Habra, who operates Roisa Legalization Services at 1828 Wilshire Blvd. in the Westlake district, were each ordered to pay $5,400 in fine and penalty assessment after they pled no contest to failing to post a $25,000 bond with the Secretary of State’s Office as required by the Immigration Consultants Act (ICA). Los Angeles Municipal Court Judge Ronnie MacLaren also placed both defendants on a year of summary probation.

In yesterday’s case, Martinez, 45, was ordered to pay $5,400 in fine and penalty assessment after he also pled no contest to failing to post a $25,000 bond. MacLaren placed Martinez on three years summary probation.

All three defendants arrived in court to enter their plea with proof that they have now posted the required $25,000 bonds.

Martinez, Guzman and Putzeys were among the owners of five immigration consultant businesses who were charged by Hahn in criminal complaints filed June 15 as a result of investigations carried out by the

Immigration Consultant Task Force, which is comprised by Hahn’s Consumer Protection Unit, Los Angeles Police Department, Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, Immigration Court Bench and Los Angeles County Department of Consumer Affairs.

Each of the defendants in the remaining two cases filed June 15 also is charged with failing to post the required $25,000 bond. They are Odilia N. Smith, 59, of Reseda, who is president of Inti Immigration Services Inc. at 124 W. Second St. in downtown Los Angeles, and Elmer Mejia, 31, of South-Central Los Angeles, who operates New Life Immigration Service at 634 S. Alvarado St. in the Westlake district.

“It is disturbing that only about 40 immigration consultants in Los Angeles County have posted bonds,” according to Hahn, who said that “given the proliferation of such businesses, the extent of the problem is both obvious and potentially serious, since we have found that failure to post the required bond usually indicates a more general failure to comply with other provisions of the ICA that exist to protect individuals who go to immigration consultants for help.”

A total of 21 cases — both criminal and civil — will be filed by Hahn’s office, the District Attorney’s Office and the U.S. Attorney’s Office as a result of sweeps carried out throughout Los Angeles County in late May and early June by task force investigators.

The cases are being handled by Deputy City Attorney Don Kass, who heads Hahn’s Consumer Protection Unit, and deputy city attorneys Keith De La Rosa, Mark Lambert and P. Greg Parham, who are prosecutors assigned to the unit.

Mike Qualls and Ted Goldstein are with the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office.