A Fremont woman has been sentenced to more than four years in prison for her role in a scam that illegally brought foreign workers to the United States using falsified H-1B visa applications.
Sunitha Guntipally, 44, along with her husband, Venkat Guntipally, 49, of Fremont, Pratap “Bob” Kondamoori, 56, of Incline Village, Nev., and Sandhya Ramireddi, 58, of Pleasanton, were indicted by a federal grand jury in May on 33 charges, including visa fraud, obstruction of justice, use of false documents, mail fraud and witness tampering, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California said in a statement.
Guntipally said she and her husband founded and owned employment-staffing companies DS Soft Tech and Equinett, which found talent for technology firms, the Justice Department’s statement said.
Guntipally admitted that between 2010 and 2014, she and the others submitted more than 100 phony petitions asking that foreign workers allowed into the country be placed at U.S. companies.
However, the companies listed in applications as needing the specialized tech workers “either did not exist or never received the proposed H-1B workers,” according to the Justice Department.
“None of them ever intended to receive those H-1B workers,” the statement adds. “These applications were designed and intended to create a pool of H-1B beneficiaries who then could be placed at legitimate employment positions in the Northern District of California and elsewhere.”
Guntipally and her accomplices “gained an unfair advantage” over other staffing firms that do similar but legitimate placement, the statement indicates. As a result, they profited from the scheme.
Although Guntipally was charged with one count of conspiracy, 10 counts of substantive visa fraud, seven counts of using false statements, four counts of mail fraud and four counts of witness tampering, the statement said she pleaded guilty to only the conspiracy charge and the other charges were dismissed.
She will serve 52 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release, and will have to pay a $50,000 fine.
In sentencing Guntipally on Nov. 29, San Jose U.S. District Judge Lucy H. Koh said the crime does “damage to the rule of law.” Koh said the defendant’s conduct “undermines respect for our legal immigration system” and does “tremendous damage to our institutions and affects the rights of others to immigrate to the United States.”
Guntipally’s accomplices already have pleaded guilty for their roles in the scheme. According to the Justice Department statement, Koh sentenced Ramireddi to 14 months of prison time and Kondamoori to 20 months.
Guntipally’s husband, Venkat, is scheduled to be sentenced March 21, 2018.
