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5 Years In Prison For Attorney Who Ran Immigration Fraud Mill

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) -- An attorney was sentenced to five years in prison Wednesday, for orchestrating a massive scheme allowing tens of thousands of illegal immigrants to gain citizenship through fraud.

Earl Seth David – also known as Rabbi Avrahom David – was sentenced Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. He was extradited to the United States from Canada last year to face charges that he processed thousands of false immigration applications, earning millions of dollars in fees.

David fled to Canada in 2006 and his law firm closed in 2009.

He pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit immigration fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud.

From 1996 until 2009, David's Manhattan-based law firm – the David Firm – charged up to $30,000 per client to provide phony employment sponsorships and fabricated documents.

The documents included fabricated pay stubs, tax returns and letters of experience claiming to show the sponsorships were real and the immigrants possessed special employment skill sets that would win them jobs with the sponsors, prosecutors said.

In reality, the "sponsors" had no intention of hiring the undocumented immigrants, and many of them were virtually made up – existing only as shell companies to perpetuate the fraud, prosecutors said.

David was indicted in 2011 along with 11 other defendants.

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