The Foreign Service officer accused of selling hundreds of visas to
residents of Vietnam made his first appearance in D.C. court Tuesday, as
more details of the alleged conspiracy have come to light.
Federal prosecutors say that Michael T. Sestak, who’s
also a reserve Navy officer, joined a 27-year-old University of Denver
graduate named Hong Vo and others to recruit customers who’d pay up to
$70,000 for a visa. All told, prosecutors say in legal filings, Sestak
received “several million dollars in bribes” for approving the visas.
In
a 10-minute session Tuesday afternoon, U.S. Magistrate Judge Deborah A.
Robinson informed Sestak that he faces up to 20 years in prison on
charges of conspiracy to commit visa fraud and bribery. For now,
Robinson declined to release Sestak from jail and held him without bond.
Seldom looking up from the table, and dressed in tan pants and a
gray T-shirt, Sestak sat silently next to his attorney during the
session. In addition to agreeing on a preliminary hearing date of June
14, Sestak’s legal counsel, J. Michael Hannon, filed a bond review
motion to be heard Thursday.
Prosecutors said in a May 22 court
document that “a conservative estimate” of the proceeds from the alleged
conspiracy was “at least $10 million,” although officials added that
“approximately $5 million in proceeds remains unaccounted for” and is
thought to be in Vietnam.
Authorities arrested Sestak in Southern
California last month. Vo was arrested early last month in Denver, but
she hasn’t yet appeared in D.C. court. In court filings, prosecutors
have cited four other alleged co-conspirators, including one of Vo’s
siblings, who live in Vietnam. The United States doesn’t have an
extradition treaty with Vietnam, limiting U.S. officials’ ability to
seize all the suspects.
On Tuesday, however, officials announced
the arrest in Washington of a 29-year-old Vietnamese citizen, Truc Tranh
Huynh, one of Vo’s cousins, as one of the alleged co-conspirators.In a
previously undisclosed document, prosecutors identified another of the
alleged co-conspirators as Anhdao Thuy Nguyen, also known as Alice
Nguyen. On May 9, a State Department Diplomatic Security Service special
agent, Simon Dinits, filed a warrant to seize money in a brokerage
account in Nguyen’s name, claiming it came from visa fraud
Investigators
say the alleged conspiracy occurred while Sestak was handling
non-immigrant visas in the U.S. consulate in Ho Chi Minh City. In court
documents, federal investigators say Vo “earned a minimum of $45,000”
last year for her alleged participation.
“Sestak agreed to approve
non-immigrant visas for applicants for a fee,” prosecutors said in the
court document filed May 22, while “Vo reached out to people in Vietnam
and in the U.S. and would advertise that ‘the deal’ was being
facilitated by a ‘lawyer’ who could guarantee visas for people to come
to the United States.”
The alleged conspiracy covered at least 500
fraudulent visa applications, according to investigators. From May 1 to
Sept. 6 of last year, investigators say, the Ho Chi Minh City consulate
received 31,386 non-immigrant visa applications and rejected 35.1
percent of them. During the same period, Sestak handled 5,489 visa
applications and rejected only 8.2 percent of them, according to
investigators.
Sestak, 41, served in the consulate until
last September, when he left in preparation for active-duty service with
the Navy. By then, investigators say, an informant had tipped them to
the alleged visa scheme.
Vo worked “at a series of jobs in
Colorado and then California,” and then moved to Vietnam for about two
years after graduating from the University of Denver in 2008, according
to court documents filed by her attorneys.
“The defendant’s family
members have verified that they have not seen any evidence of
unexplained wealth on defendant’s part and that they were totally
surprised by her arrest,” defense attorneys Robert Feitel and Sandi Rhee
said in a May 23 request filing.
Feitel and Rhee said Vo wasn’t a flight risk and that they were attempting to get her released on bail.
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