Man posing as lawyer scammed people seeking visas with bogus documents, feds say

A man was arrested after being accused of falsely representing himself as an immigration attorney and preparing fraudulent documents on behalf of unknowing clients.

Luc Fikiri Matthews, 47, was indicted Feb. 9 on six counts of submitting false and fraudulent immigration documents and six counts of committing aggravated identity theft, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey.

Matthews’ attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment from McClatchy News.

Matthews is from Philadelphia and operated the African Hispanic Immigration Organization in Pennsauken, New Jersey, according to an indictment. He claimed to be a “licensed and qualified” immigration lawyer but in reality was not licensed to practice law in either Pennsylvania or New Jersey, documents said.

Matthews advertised his organization as one that could help people and their families with immigration-related legal work, “including filing official U.S. government forms and paperwork to obtain immigration benefits in the United States,” according to the indictment.

Six clients who worked with Matthews in Pennsauken and at the other location of his organization, Newark, and who were all immigrants from Honduras, Greece or El Salvador, sought Matthews’ help in obtaining U visas, which allow people “who suffered substantial physical or mental abuse as the result of having been the victim of ... criminal activity” to receive certain protections, such as being able to live and work in the U.S., the indictment said.

Matthews was accused of making “false and fraudulent statements on immigration documents,” including forging approvals on forms from government officials, to obtain U visas for his clients, the indictment said. He was also accused of misleading his clients, assuring them that they were eligible for the visas and charging money for his services, according to the indictment.

Matthews was also accused of falsely claiming that his clients were victims of certain crimes that had occurred within the U.S. to get them to qualify for U visas.

For example, one of Matthews’ clients from El Salvador expressed concern to Matthews that he wouldn’t qualify for a U visa because his child had been assaulted in El Salvador and not the U.S. Matthews told him not to worry, the indictment said.

In another instance, a client from Honduras told Matthews that she was the victim of a crime in New Jersey in 2011, and that her spouse had witnessed the crime. Matthews told them that the crime would make the woman and her spouse eligible for the visas, but then misrepresented the crime in immigration forms, saying that it included a rape and sexual assault, the indictment said.

Matthews also submitted documents with “false names, signatures, and other false means of identification, from various visa applicants and government officials located in New Jersey and New York,” according to the news release. None of the clients ever received a U visa, the indictment said.

Matthews was scheduled to make his first appearance in court Thursday, Feb. 24.

This story was originally published February 25, 2022 at 4:23 PM with the headline "Man posing as lawyer scammed people seeking visas with bogus documents, feds say."