An Immigration Attorney Is Accused of Being a Fraud, and
His Clients Scramble for Help
By NINA BERNSTEIN
More than 100 former clients of a man accused of falsely posing as an immigration lawyer thronged the 19th-century marble lobby of the New York City Bar Association on Monday night, drawn by an offer of free advice from real lawyers.
Filing upstairs, the clients waited under chandeliers and portraits of legal giants, then jammed conference rooms where 54 volunteer lawyers, working in pairs, tried to untangle the messes left in their immigration cases by the accused man, Victor M. Espinal.
Mr. Espinal, 59, was charged last month with pretending to be an immigration lawyer since at least April 1992 and defrauding three clients, all of them Latino immigrants. He pleaded not guilty and has been released on $50,000 bail.
“He was doing a thriving business,” marveled one of the volunteer lawyers, looking over the packed room in the bar association’s West 44th Street offices.
TO READ FULL ARTICLE, CLICK HERE
No comments:
Post a Comment