Judge Orders Firm That Bilked Immigrants to Refund $441,000 : Fraud: Court rules consultants’ scam took money from undocumented workers who believed they would get legal resident status.

A North County immigration consulting firm has been ordered to pay more than $441,000 to immigrant workers who were bilked in a massive immigration scam that promised them legal residency in this country.

Susan M. Jeannette, who operated the American Law Assn. in Del Mar, and Leticia Ramirez, an immigration consultant who worked with Jeannette, were ordered Tuesday to make restitution. The payments were ordered by Superior Court Judge Charles Hayes, who ruled last week that American Law Assn. had defrauded as many as 1,000 undocumented migrants.

San Diego attorney Stephen Yunker, who represented the migrants at no cost, said the amount made the restitution one of largest in California history for similar cases. Yunker, of Luce, Forward, Hamilton & Scripps, and attorneys from the California Rural Legal Assistance League tried the case.

Attorney Joe Auerbach, who represented Jeannette and Ramirez, said that Hayes’ restitution order has been stayed for 60 days, pending a motion for a new trial.

The charges against the two women alleged that they billed aliens $300 to $1,500 for services for which other agencies were charging $10 or less.

Jeannette and Ramirez were filing Immigration and Naturalization Service post cards for aliens petitioning under the Replenishment Agriculture Workers, or RAW, program, a component of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act that included amnesty for some migrants.

Auerbach denied that the women did anything wrong.

“We had two witnesses testify that charging $300 was not unconscionable because it included other services. . . . A retired INS official also testified that there is no law that puts a cap on what they could have charged. . . . Jeannette still has hundreds of satisfied patrons who are aware of this lawsuit and have been assisted by Jeannette in other programs, including the RAW program,” said Auerbach.

However, Yunker said his clients’ case was helped immensely by the testimony of former attorney Edward Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald had participated in the scam against the migrants but decided to testify against Jeannette and Ramirez in return for being exempted from prosecution.

“Fitzgerald was involved in a scam involving Filipinos,” said Yunker.

According to Yunker, Fitzgerald advertised in the Philippines, soliciting applicants for the RAW program. Under the RAW program, aliens will be eligible for amnesty if federal officials declare a shortage of agricultural workers and they are picked to work in the fields for at least three years.

INS officials stopped taking applications for the RAW program in December, 1989, and federal officials have yet to declare a shortage of agricultural workers.

Yunker said that about 130 Filipinos asked Fitzgerald to help them apply for the program and paid him $1,500 each.

“The sad thing is that Fitzgerald and American Law Assn. were not authorized by the INS to process foreigners. They paid $1,500 a pop for nothing. . . . This part of the scam lasted only four weeks, but Fitzgerald collected about $200,000 during that period,” said Yunker.

Fitzgerald is no longer a practicing attorney, he added.

In addition to ordering restitution, Hayes imposed severe restrictions on Jeannette and Ramirez’s business practice. The American Law Assn. office was closed, but the two women are still involved in immigration consulting and now operate a business called North County Legalization Services, Yunker said.

“The judge ordered that that business or any business they operate be run under very strict guidelines. There’s a 12-page order on the subject that among other things limits the fees they can charge and requiring them to use written contracts,” said Yunker.

Auerbach said both women are now on vacation and unavailable for comment.

“I think there’s dozens of people still operating illegally in this (immigration) field. . . . The RAW program was especially subject to abuse and was obscenely lucrative for people like Jeannette and Ramirez. . . . There was obviously a huge amount of money to be made if you winked a little bit,” said Yunker.

The case developed from a lawsuit filed by CRLA attorneys in December, 1989, against Fitzgerald, Jeannette and Ramirez, who was originally identified as Alicia Ramirez.