Date: 05-23-2017

Case Style: United States of America v. Victor Leos

Case Number: 3:17-cr-00189-N

Judge: David J. Horan

Court: United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas (Dallas County)

Plaintiff's Attorney: John Kull and Russell Fusco

Defendant's Attorney: Robert H Rogers

Description: Dallas, TX - Former Garland Independent School District Executive Director of Human Resources Pleads Guilty to Conspiracy to Falsify Immigration Documents

Victor Leos, 63, of Garland, Texas, appeared in federal court and pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit false statements in connection with immigration documents.

Leos faces a maximum penalty of five years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine.

According to plea documents, Leos was employed by Garland Independent School District (GISD), located in Garland, Texas from 1998 to 2013. Leos was responsible for recruiting teachers from Mexico, Central and South America, and the Philippines to fill open teaching positions at GISD. From around 2007 to around 2012, Leos engaged in a criminal conspiracy with outside recruiters to recruit and hire foreign teachers that GISD did not necessarily need. Leos benefited by receiving kickbacks in the form of inflated fees to teach orientation classes, travel, and other forms of remuneration. After the foreign teachers were employed at GISD on H-1B temporary visas, Leos knew they were unlikely to qualify for Form 9089s (Applications for Permanent Employment Certification). To further the conspiracy, Leos knowingly signed and filed falsified Form 9089s with the Department of Labor (DOL) to sponsor the teachers for employment-based permanent resident applications.

Specifically, from August 27, 2012 to December 6, 2012, Leos signed and filed for GISD thirty-eight Form 9089s in which he knowingly made false statements. In each Form 9089, Leos certified that all U.S. workers who applied for the job opening were rejected for lawful job­-related reasons when Leos knew this was not the case. To support these false statements, Leos created recruitment reports which contained additional false statements regarding the number of U.S. applicants for the open positions and the reasons for the rejection of the U.S. applicants. Leos had these recruitment reports submitted to DOL to support the falsified Form 9089s that were also submitted.

This was a joint investigation involving U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the Department of Labor-Office of the Inspector General, the Department of Education-Office of the Inspector General, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Outcome: Guilty

Plaintiff's Experts:

Defendant's Experts:

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