You have /5 articles left.
Sign up for a free account or log in.
Yi Chen and Yixin Li have been charged by federal prosecutors with running businesses in Southern California that charged foreign students thousands of dollars for “guaranteed” admission to a college that would lead to the issuance of an F-1 student visa. Students used the service, prosecutors said, to gain admission to such places as New York University, Columbia University, Boston College and several University of California campuses. To secure admission, the companies prepared application packages that used bogus or altered transcripts, and they hired people to impersonate the prospective student to take standardized tests such as the Test of English as a Foreign Language.
They have been charged with conspiracy, which carries a statutory maximum sentence of five years in federal prison. They are also named in various counts of fraud and misuse of visas, permits and other documents, an offense that carries a sentence of up to 10 years in prison. Chen and Li are each charged with one count of aggravated identity theft, which carries a mandatory two-year prison sentence that would run consecutively to any other prison term imposed in the case.
Li’s lawyer, Victor Sherman, said his client runs a legitimate business and will plead not guilty. The government is “making this sound like it’s the crime of the century," Sherman told the Los Angeles Times.
Chen has pleaded not guilty.
