Gaurav Mehta and Isha Mehta were married and divorced in India.
AB Wire
Two Indians, Gaurav Mehta, 36, and Isha Mehta, 33, also known as Isha Kamboj and Isha Johnson, who were formerly married and divorced in India, and came to the US to work and settle down illegally after fraudulent marriages to US citizens, have been sentenced to three years of probation in Troy, New York. They also have to complete 100 hours of community service and pay $2,000 fines, upon which they would be deported.
Also sentenced was the woman Gaurav Mehta got married to, to illegally obtain an Employment Authorization Card and temporary permanent residency. The sentence was announced by U.S. Attorney Richard S. Hartunian said.
Mary Opoka, 56, of Troy, who married Gaurav Mehta in October 2011, was sentenced Thursday to 3 years of probation and ordered to complete 150 hours of community service, according to a separate news release from Hartunian, reported Troy Record.
The sentences, which followed jury convictions for marriage fraud and immigration fraud, were issued by Senior United States District Court Judge Thomas J. McAvoy, the releases said.
The evidence at trial established: Gaurav and Isha Mehta were married in India in February 2006. They divorced in India in 2009, but then flew together, along with their child, to the United States, eventually settling in Menands, New York, and working together at a Menands gas station. The Mehtas came to the United States on 6-month tourist visas that expired in 2010; neither had authorization to stay in the United States, according to the Justice Department.
In October 2011, Opoka, a U.S. citizen, and Gaurav Mehta were married in Troy. The marriage was designed to enable Mehta to stay in the United States. Because of the fraudulent marriage to a U.S. citizen, Mehta was issued an employment authorization document and a conditional permanent resident card that he was not eligible to receive.
Isha Mehta married Brandon Johnson, a U.S. citizen, in Troy in January 2013. Gaurav Mehta paid Johnson $2,000 to marry Isha. The marriage was designed to enable Isha Mehta to stay in the United States. She too was issued an employment authorization document that she was not eligible to receive.