Trio swindled $500K from immigrants they met at Twin Cities churches, charges say
By WCCO Staff
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MINNESOTA (WCCO) — Three Minnesotans are accused in a $500,000 scheme to defraud immigrants by offering them legal services, including paths to citizenship, that were never provided.
Charging documents filed Wednesday say that between January 2023 and November 2025, the ringleader targeted at least 25 immigrants she met at Twin Cities churches. In many instances she offered to provide them legal assistance through a fake lawyer, “Isabella Jason,” in exchange for cash payments.
According to the criminal complaint, the pastor of an Inver Grove Heights church met with a Mendota Heights detective and 11 other victims of the scheme in July. The pastor said that he first met the woman in January of 2023, when she started attending the church. She then offered to hire members of the church to work in her restaurants, but said she needed a deposit from the pastor in order to secure their employment.
The pastor said that she told the victims that she could offer legal assistance for immigration issues, visas and help with unpaid bills. She even offered to sell the pastor a $12,000 “golden card” that would give him the ability to help others get U.S. citizenship. None of the victims received documents or services she offered, the documents say. The pastor also said he had given her $29,700 in cash.
The charges say that in one instance, a man was trying to help his wife get U.S. citizenship, so took her to the woman’s Lake Elmo home so that she could take a citizenship test. The two other people charged in the scheme were at the home at the time, to “make sure everything goes right,” documents say. At one point, one of the men said he was a representative for the fake lawyer “Isabella Jason.”
According to the complaint, later in July, the Inver Grove Heights pastor came to the police to say that the trio came to his church and pressured him not to tell people about the fraudulent scheme. They told him they could call police or Immigration and Customs Enforcement to have him deported, documents say.
A search warrant for one of the defendant’s bank accounts show tens of thousands of dollars in deposits that line up with when the victims provided the alleged ringleader with cash payments, according to the complaint. A separate warrant of the Lake Elmo home turned up passports and photographs of the victims.
The three were taken into custody on Monday. Documents say they stole over $563,700 through the course of the scheme.
“This particular scenario is something that is known within immigrant and immigration lawyer circles as something called notario fraud,” Ana Pottratz Acosta, with the University of Minnesota Law School, said. “The problem is that there are a lot of people who are very desperate to come up with a solution that would allow them to gain legal status in the United States.”
The alleged ringleader faces one charge of racketeering and 11 counts of theft by swindle. One man faces two counts of aiding and abetting theft by swindle, and the other man faces one charge of theft by swindle and two counts of aiding and abetting theft by swindle.
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