Orange County lawyer reaches plea deal in immigration visa fraud case

An Orange County sole practitioner accused of falsifying federal work visa petitions for 17 years has agreed to plead guilty to two felonies.

Mihae Park, 53, faces at least three years in prison under a plea deal filed Dec. 19. She is scheduled to appear before U.S. District Judge James V. Selna on Jan. 14.

Federal agents already have seized $292,482 from Park, which they believe she received as payment for her visa work, as well as a 2012 Ferrari California and a 2015 Volkswagen GTI she bought with other fraudulently earned money, according to the U.S. attorney's office.

Prosecutors agreed to recommend the low end of the sentencing range, which carries 37 to 46 months in prison under the U.S. Sentencing Commission guidelines.

A State Bar member since 1998, Park admitted in the plea agreement to submitting at least 25 visa petitions with false information to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services between 2000 and 2017, including petitions that claimed employees who were dead or retired and used bogus Social Security numbers.

Two petitions submitted in 2013 were on behalf of Best Educational Institute Inc., a Garden Grove-based company that didn't know or hire Park's intended visa beneficiaries. Park claimed the beneficiaries planned to teach Chinese and music, but the company offered neither class, according to her plea agreement.

She is to plead guilty to one count of visa fraud and one count of filing a false tax return. The tax charge relates to her failing to report $763,418 in income between 2009 and 2014.

The plea deal calls for an offense level of 15, then acknowledges the U.S. attorney's office and Park's lawyer, H. Dean Steward, disagree about whether the number of documents involve warrants an enhancement of six offense levels or nine offense levels. An offense level of 21 carries 37 to 46 months, while one of 24 carries 51 to 63 months in prison for someone with no criminal history.

"Whether the enhancement should be six or nine levels is an issue that remains to be resolved at sentencing," according to the deal.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Lawrence E. Kole is prosecuting. United States v. Park, 18-CR00261 (C.D. Cal., filed Dec. 19, 2018).