Immigration Agent Pleads Not Guilty in Perjury Case

LOS ANGELES — A supervisory special agent for the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service pleaded not guilty Monday to charges that he perjured himself to shield former co-workers from bribery allegations when he worked in Santa Ana.

Alvaro A. Bracamonte, 56, of Huntington Beach entered the plea before U.S. Magistrate Venetta S. Tassopulos in Los Angeles.

Bracamonte is the first INS special agent “in memory” to be charged with a crime relating to his government duties, according to an INS spokesman.

He has been suspended with pay from his $41,000-a-year job and will begin losing pay next week, said Brendan O’Neill, Bracamonte’s lawyer. O’Neill said he plans to try to require the INS to pay the agent’s salary while until the case is resolved.

Bracamonte is accused of testifying falsely in defense of a former co-worker and his wife, an INS examiner, at their trial for accepting bribes for granting permanent resident status by falsifying application forms. Both Robert and Dorothy Anaya were convicted in 1986 and are serving four-year sentences in federal prison.

During the 1986 trial, Bracamonte testified that he had loaned the Anayas $160,000. Government prosecutors, to whom Bracamonte refused to speak before his testimony, said the money was from bribes.

The Anayas accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars from 36 Taiwanese seeking permanent-resident status. The government charged that the couple received up to $40,000 per application. The aliens posed as Buddhist monks and nuns in a bid to use a federal law benefiting foreign clergy in gaining residency status.

Bracamonte, who supervised six INS agents responsible for investigating immigration fraud, was transferred from the Santa Ana office to Los Angeles immediately after he testified in the trial, O’Neill said.

If convicted, he could face up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.