He will be required to register as a sex offender.
An Indian American man of Watertown, New York, will lose his US citizenship as he was sentenced for citizenship fraud.
The 37-year-old Gurpreet Singh was sentenced on Tuesday by the federal court in Syracuse to three months in prison to be followed by three years of supervised release for lying to the United States Citizenship and Immigration (USCIS) authorities.
Singh apparently told USCIS that he had not committed any crimes during the time-period he was applying for US citizenship, even though he was involved with a child molestation crime, the US Attorney’s Office of the Northern District of New York said in a press release. It added that his citizenship is being revoked.
Singh abused a 9-year-old child during the same time-period he was applying for US citizenship and was pleaded guilty to a single count of sexual abuse of a minor girl, but by then had already become a naturalized US citizen. He was arrested by the City of Watertown (New York) Police Department the day after his naturalization ceremony in April 2012.
Singh was convicted on January 19 for knowingly obtaining US citizenship through unlawful naturalization following a jury trial. The trial evidence demonstrated that Singh deliberately failed to report his criminal activity because he knew he was not entitled to citizenship and that USCIS would not have approved his naturalization application if the agency had known about Singh’s abuse of the child.
He will be required to register as a sex offender and will be prohibited from having direct contact with children under the age of 18, other than his own and from going to places where children under 18 are likely to congregate, such as parks, libraries, and schools, without prior permission of a probation officer.
Singh’s case was investigated by Homeland Security Investigations (HIS) and the City of Watertown Police Department and was prosecuted by Assistant US Attorneys Michael F Perry and Robert S Levine.