ANGEL Paras Cruz Jr., who is doing business as Villa De Cruz Apartelle and World Electric & Construction Co., Inc., pled not guilty to visa fraud and fraud in foreign labor contracting charges.
A federal indictment charged him with eight counts of visa fraud and five counts of fraud in foreign labor contracting charges.
At an arraignment on Thursday, Cruz appeared out of custody and was represented by attorney Mark Scoggins.
Through his attorney, Cruz waived the reading of the charges and further reading of his rights and entered a plea of not guilty to all counts.
Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona of the District Court for the NMI accepted the plea of not guilty and scheduled a jury trial for July 22 at 10 a.m.
Judge Manglona also allowed the defendant to be released pending trial after posting a $2,000 unsecured bond subject to certain terms and conditions.
The prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney Garth Backe, did not oppose the defendant’s release.
Scoggins, for his part, informed the court that his client is a dual citizen of the United States and the Philippines and has passports for both countries.
At the court’s order, Scoggins surrendered his client’s Philippine passport and recently expired U.S. passport to U.S. Probation Officer Greg Arriola.
Scoggins also asked the court to allow his client to renew his passport to travel to Guam for medical purposes.
Judge Manglona granted the request and ordered that the defendant be allowed to renew his U.S. passport, which may require retrieving the expired passport book from the probation officer.
She ordered the defendant to surrender the new U.S. passport to the Probation Office once it arrives.
According to the indictment, “On dates, 12/21/22; 8/9/23; 11/8/23; and 1/31/24…Cruz…did knowingly subscribe as true under penalty of perjury under 28 U.S.C. § 1746, a false statement with respect to a material fact in an application, affidavit, and document required by the immigration laws and regulations prescribed thereunder, to wit: a United States Citizenship and Immigration Services Form I-129CW. Specifically, in each instance…Defendant certified his company would pay foreign workers according to CNMI and Federal law, as well as the terms and conditions of the employment contracts submitted with the Form I-129CW, when in truth, Defendant did not intend to pay the workers for all the work they performed and/or pay them overtime compensation for any work performed over 40 hours.”
Cruz also made a false statement in a U.S. Department of Labor ETA Form 9142C, the indictment stated.
“Specifically, in each instance…Defendant certified his company would only make deductions from the workers’ paychecks that were disclosed in the ETA Form 9142C or in the workers’ employment contract, when in truth, Defendant intended to make numerous other deductions, to include the cost of their plane tickets to Saipan; their workers’ compensation premiums; fees related to renewing their CW-1 visas, and the purchase of job-related equipment,” the indictment stated.
It added that Cruz “recruited, solicited, and hired…foreign workers based on the false promises and representations they would be paid for all work performed; they would receive overtime compensation for work performed over 40 hours; and their wages would only be deducted for Social Security and CNMI taxes.”
The indictment included a notice of forfeiture.