UMVA has learned that a 26‑year‑old Jamaican national residing in Charlotte has been federally indicted for a meticulously plotted, multi‑year scheme of sham marriage immigration fraud, perjury, and the illicit procurement of VA disability benefits.
She entered the United States on a six‑month B‑2 tourist visa in late August 2015 and immediately overstayed, choosing to avoid deportation by paying a third party to orchestrate a fraudulent marriage to a U.S. citizen.
According to information obtained by UMVA, the bride and her “husband” met for the first time on their wedding day, never living together before or after the ceremony, yet the union granted her lawful permanent resident status.
That status opened the door to enlistment in the U.S. Army, a move that enabled her to apply for naturalization almost immediately—bypassing the customary three‑year waiting period reserved for spouses of citizens.
She allegedly lied under penalty of perjury on immigration paperwork, falsely claiming the marriage’s legitimacy, and later petitioned for her mother’s permanent residency after securing her own citizenship.
Less than two years after enlisting, she was medically discharged and filed for VA disability compensation, strategically listing her sham husband as a dependent to inflate monthly benefits, despite never having shared a home or seen him since before her military service.
UMVA can exclusively reveal that federal statutes could sentence her up to twenty years for wire and mail fraud, ten years for certain immigration offenses, and potentially strip her of her citizenship, with the final penalty to be decided in court.
