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Byron Wan
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🚨 security lapses: sham marriages with US Navy members weren’t exposed until one was arrested in Feb after he offered bribes for bogus Navy IDs to get 🇨🇳 immigrants into Naval Air Station Jacksonville‼️ Two more US Navy members — Morgan Chambers and Jacinth Bailey, both women — now also face federal fraud charges involving a scam that used people in Jacksonville to stage fake marriages with 🇨🇳 immigrants. Charges filed on Dec 23 against Chambers and Bailey are at least the 3rd and 4th cases in Jacksonville’s federal court this year involving military members who took part in sham weddings after being promised $45,000 in one case and $35,000 in others. Both women are charged with conspiracy to commit marriage fraud, which carries a maximum potential sentence of 5 years behind bars. They’re charged through court documents referred to as informations and waived their rights to be formally indicted, a choice sometimes made because defendants plan to plead guilty. However, neither woman has faced a judge yet or entered any plea. No one else is mentioned by name in the informations, but the documents describe actions by unnamed conspirators that match dates and actions in similar cases filed this year against former Navy recruiter Brinio Urena and reservist Raymond Zumba, who previously served together on the Mayport-based destroyer USS Carney. Bailey's information said that a nameless "conspirator" matching court accounts of Zumba told her "she would be paid ~$45,000 for the entire process of marrying a 🇨🇳 national, applying and obtaining a 'green card' for her future, nominal husband, and then divorcing him." Immigrants can become green card-carrying, permanent legal residents by marrying American citizens, then get divorced while remaining in the US. Bailey flew to New York City, met the groom and other people from the conspiracy and married him in January in Connecticut. Zumba pleaded guilty on Dec 12 to being part of a marriage scam that prosectors said only ended when he was arrested in Feb for offering bribes for bogus Navy IDs to get Chinese immigrants into Naval Air Station Jacksonville. Zumba pleaded guilty to the bribery charge in July and is awaiting sentencing for both cases, which could combine for potential maximum prison term of 20 years. Urena pleaded guilty in Aug and is scheduled for sentencing Jan 21. Like the women charged this week, both Urena's case and Zumba's bribery charge involved helping 🇨🇳 immigrants in return for money. A marriage-fraud information filed against Zumba on Dec 5 also aligns with the case against Chambers, saying that Zumba traveled to Las Vegas to join Urena and a servicemember labeled "Conspirator D" at a sham wedding on Oct 4, 2024. The filing included a description of a conversation Zumba had over a group chat in Sep 2024, explaining when payments would be made in the marriage scam. The unnamed sailor “would be paid $10,000 up front, $20,000 when a ‘green card’ was obtained for her future, nominal husband and $5,000 when the divorce was settled”. A plea agreement Urena signed in August said three people he talked to about sham marriages ended up marrying 🇨🇳 spouses. Although no names were used, specifics in Urena's plea match pieces of the charges against Chambers, such as the fact that prosecutors say she married a 🇨🇳 immigrant in Las Vegas on Oct 4, 2024, the same date that Urena's plea says "Conspirators C and D married" in Clark County, Nevada. Urena's plea says the Navy woman in that marriage worked with him as a Navy recruiter, but it's unknown whether Chambers ever held that post. Online wedding records from Clark County, where Las Vegas is located, reflect a marriage involving someone with Chambers' name and a groom whose first and last names match the plaintiff in a federal court case filed in Nov in Southern California against Joseph Edlow, director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services. That case 1/n jacksonville.com/story/news/mil jacksonville.com/story/news/loc
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