Fake Long Island Lawyer Bilked Immigrants Of 1,000s: Nassau DA

RONKONKOMA, NY — A Ronkonkoma woman pawned herself off as an immigration attorney to undocumented immigrants who were seeking help with legal matters and ripped them off of over $30,000, the Nassau County District Attorney’s office said Monday.

Forty-four-year-old Tania Gonzalez was arrested on June 7, after Nassau prosecutors say she allegedly misrepresented herself as an immigration attorney to “numerous undocumented immigrants seeking assistance,” between Jan. 1, 2016, and Jan. 31, 2020. Gonzalez told her clients that if they had been in the U.S. for 10 years, they qualified for a 10-year visa, even if they had entered illegally, but no such visa exists under Immigration Law, prosecutors said.

Gonzalez allegedly requested “substantial” down payments for her work, and in many cases, filed a fraudulent Application for Asylum with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services without the victims’ knowledge, according to prosecutors.

Acting District Attorney Joyce Smith said Gonzalez “allegedly deceived hardworking immigrants by promising to help them on their path to obtaining U.S. residency.”

“Tania Gonzalez has several aliases and we suspect that more people may have allegedly been defrauded by this defendant,” she added.

Gonzalez has also gone under aliases like Tania Ayala and Tania Gonzalez Renderos in the past, prosecutors said.

Immigration officials provided employment authorization documents to Gonzalez’s clients pending action by the agency on the original applications, according to prosecutors.

Gonzalez allegedly used the issuance of the employment authorization documents to show victims she was working on their cases to obtain the promised visas, prosecutors said. In actuality, Citizens and Immigration Services issues employment authorization documents so that people can support themselves and their families pending the agency’s actions, according to prosecutors.

Once the applications in clients’ cases were processed, Citizens and Immigration Services was alerted to the fact that the applications had been filed without the persons’ knowledge and began taking action, prosecutors said.

Her arrest was the result of a joint investigation by the DA’s office and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Fraud Detection and National Security.

Gonzalez has been charged with 10 counts of third-degree grand larceny, one count of fourth-degree grand larceny, and one count of first-degree scheme to defraud.

She was released on her own recognizance and is due back in court on Aug. 25.

If convicted on the top charge, Gonzalez faces up to seven years in prison.

Her attorney, Kristin Galison of Mineola, was not immediately available for comment.

Prosecutors are asking anyone who believes they were the victim of Gonzalez, to contact the District Attorney’s Office of Immigrant Affairs at (516) 571-7756.