INS Employee Pleads Guilty to Bribery

A former employee of the Immigration and Naturalization Service’s California service center in Laguna Niguel pleaded guilty Monday to accepting thousands of dollars in bribes for issuing work permits she wasn’t authorized to approve.

Nancy Stephenson, 55, of San Juan Capistrano entered her plea in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana. She faces up to 25 years in federal prison on charges of bribery and issuing work permits fraudulently when she is sentenced Aug. 12, according to the prosecutor in the case.

“This office has zero tolerance for public corruption,” Assistant U.S. Atty. Greg Staples said. “The jobs performed by these people are important, and to the extent that there’s any corruption out there, we’re determined to root it out.”

The corruption in Laguna Niguel, he said, began in March 2002, when Stephenson -- who worked as an adjudications officer for the INS, later renamed the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services -- began accepting money from immigrants seeking permits to find employment in the U.S.

Though authorized to adjudicate employment-based immigration petitions, Stephenson was not authorized to approve applications for work permits. Working through intermediaries, Staples said, she charged at least 99 applicants up to $4,000 apiece to mark their applications with a coded INS stamp indicating approval.

In addition, Staples said, Stephenson made false entries in INS computer records supporting the fraudulent approvals.

Most of the fraudulently handled applications, he said, came from members of Southern California’s immigrant Samoan and Filipino communities.

Her two accomplices -- Loreta Mose, 45, of Long Beach, and Orlando Cariaga, 51, of Cerritos -- pleaded guilty several months ago to trafficking in fraudulent work permits and could face up to 10 years each in prison.