ALEXANDRIA, Va. - Two men who ran a company that promised visas for foreign investors seeking a new life in America pleaded not guilty yesterday to charges that included immigration fraud, conspiracy and money laundering.
James F. O'Connor and James A. Geisler entered the pleas before U.S. District Judge T. S. Ellis 3rd, who set a Jan. 8 trial date for the two executives of the Herndon-based Interbank Group.
After the hearing, Geisler's attorney, Greg English, said his client would be exonerated once the case is brought before a jury.
"It's a complicated case," said English, referring to literally truckloads of evidence that federal investigators amassed during a two-year probe.
"We're just going to get prepared to fight," said Frank Salvato, O'Connor's attorney. O'Connor was accompanied at the hearing by his wife and two children.
Geisler and O'Connor were released on their own recognizance after their arrest this month but were required to surrender their passports. They are also barred from further involvement in the immigration firm.
Prosecutors also obtained a court order placing a freeze on assets held by the two defendants, including their personal residences and their cars.
In an 80-page indictment made public Aug. 11, a federal grand jury charged that the two men filed about 320 false visa applications with the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service in 1997 and 1998. The applications were filed under a 10-year-old program under which foreigners can get a permanent green card by investing from $500,000 to $1 million in an American business.
The indictment charges that Geisler and O'Connor told investors they had to put up only $100,000 or $150,000 to qualify for the program. Investors were told that the balance could be made up from loans, prosecutors alleged.
Prosecutors contend that little if any of the money actually went into American businesses as intended under the law. Instead, much of it was diverted to the defendants, court records state.
To make it appear to INS officials that the proper amounts had been invested, Geisler and O'Connor wired money to a bank in the Bahamas and then wired it back to the United States just long enough to generate a bank statement in the name of the investor, the indictment alleges.
According to the indictment, $134 million was moved back and forth through foreign bank accounts as part of the scheme.
The Interbank Group was one of several companies set up to take advantage of a provision in a 1990 immigration law designed to spur foreign investment in the United States. Known as the investor visa program, the law allows up to 10,000 people per year to get green cards.
