A former employee of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) was sentenced to serve four years and eight months in jail this week, after pleading guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit bribery. Anthony Fitzgerald Brown of Lancaster, Texas, admitted to solicitation and receipt of thousands of dollars in bribe money in order to issue Employment Authorization Documents (EAD) to immigrants who were ineligible to work or to reside in the United States. Brown was also accused of having destroyed government files to conceal evidence of the illegally issued EADs.

Fifteen other defendants have been charged, along with Brown, in a 26-count indictment. The defendants were accused of conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to commit bribery and fraud in connection with identification documents, unlawful production of U.S. government identification documents and bribery.

Brown admitted that he solicited and accepted thousands of dollars in bribes for approving, requesting, and causing Employment Authorization Documents (EADs) (INS Forms I-766) to be made and delivered to aliens who were not eligible to receive them between January 2001 and March 1, 2003. Brown then disposed of the files and supporting documentation to conceal evidence that the EADs were unlawfully issued.

Brown has been ordered to surrender to the Bureau of Prisons on December 3 to begin his sentence. He will be placed on three years of supervised release following his prison term.

On March 28, 2002 another INS agent, Salvador Olivas of Avondale, Arizona, was indicted and charged with converting to his own use over $6,000 in cash, seized in the course of Special Agent Olivas’s employment, from a criminal suspect.

A conviction for an employee of the United States converting to his own use the cash of another carries a maximum penalty for ten years in prison, a $250,000 fine, or both.