BND consultants facing prison time
Couple pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges
BY EMMA PEREZ-TREVIÑO
The Brownsville Herald
Consultants who took Brownsville Navigation District officials to China and paid U.S. Rep. Solomon P. Ortiz’s travels to the Far East are facing possible prison time after recently pleading guilty to an immigration plot involving Chinese nationals.
Sixty-four-year-old Kenneth D. Cohen, a Houston businessman and board member of the Marine Military Academy in Harlingen, and his wife, Ping Lee Cohen, 54, pleaded guilty in February to conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government in federal court in Houston.
“Mr. Ortiz was deeply disappointed that Ken and Ping broke the law, and the judge will decide the price they pay for that,” Ortiz’s spokeswoman, Cathy Travis, said Friday.
BND Deputy Director Donna Eymard said she was surprised to find out about the conviction.
“They were very professional people,” she said. “They always did a fine job for us,”
In a statement released earlier this year, U.S. Attorney Chuck Rosenberg said between April 2000 and October 2005, the Cohens contacted Chinese citizens who paid up to $120,000 to enter the United States and ultimately obtain citizenship.
The Cohens would bring in Chinese citizens under the false pretenses of attending business seminars or conducting business negotiations.
Rosenberg said the Cohens would recruit the owners of small U.S. companies to offer jobs to Chinese citizens. This allowed the Chinese citizens to obtain employment-based visas to enter the country and remain here on a business visa.
“The defendants then created an illusory relationship between Chinese companies and U.S. companies by submitting forged stock certificates, stock transfer ledgers and financial records in support of petitions to the former Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), which were then filed with the Immigration Service on behalf of their clients,” Rosenberg stated.
The Cohens would use a law office to petition the INS for the Chinese citizens to enter and remain in the U.S. as executive-level employees of the various U.S. businesses.
“The affected U.S. business owners confirmed that the supporting documents had been forged, that they never employed the Chinese citizens and that their companies were never wholly or partially owned by the Chinese companies as required to obtain this class of visa,” Rosenberg said.
The Cohens face up to five years in prison and $250,000 in fines. They will be sentenced later this fall.
Doing Business with BND
The Cohens have numerous corporations, a review of public records show, but in Brownsville, they were known to BND as Asia Access Corp.
Eymard started working for BND in 2000. Present board member Roy de los Santos was already on the BND board as was former board member Carl “Joe” Gayman. Former board member Sidney Lasseigne was getting ready to join the board.
The late Raul Besteiro was BND’s chief executive officer.
BND’s first payment to the Cohens’ corporation was in March 2001 in the amount of $20,000 for “consulting fees,” public records show.
By November 2002, BND had paid Asia Access $91,108. Of this amount, records indicate that $15,510 was reimbursement for a stay at the Hotel Beijing, $80 for visas to China and $5,980 for airfare to Ningbo-Hong Kong in 2001.
BND paid Asia Access a service fee of $5,000 in 2001 for a trip to China and paid the firm a consulting fee of $40,000 in July 2002.
BND officials made three trips to China between 2000 and 2003.
“I know they arranged all the Far East trips, but how they came here, I could not begin to tell you. I don’t know,” Eymard said.
De Los Santos said he also didn’t know.
Gayman said Ping Lee Cohen was BND’s tour guide in China and arranged meetings with Chinese officials and companies.
“They would arrange the trips and work out the itinerary. I never did see anything suspicious,” de los Santos said.
“From the minute we arrived, all the meetings were set up,” Eymard recalled.
Getting Close to a Congressman
Travis said that Ortiz, D-Corpus Christi, has known the Cohens for more than a decade and became acquainted with them through mutual friends.
Travis said she doesn’t know if Ortiz or any member of his staff introduced the Cohens to BND and left the question to BND.
Gayman thinks Ortiz brought the Cohens to BND: “The congressman is the one that instigated the trips to China,” Gayman said.
Lasseigne recalled that Ortiz, his former chief of staff Lencho Rendon and Besteiro were close to the Cohens to “Madam Ping,” Ping Lee Cohen.
“She was very attractive, very, very, attractive, real sharp in business,” Lasseigne said of Ping Lee Cohen.
“I remember Lencho telling me that his ideal dream team (to help BND) would be (lobbyist) Randy DeLay, (Monterrey consult-ant) Esther Rodriguez and ‘Madam Ping,’” Lasseigne said.
The BND present and former officials said that to their knowledge, BND never assisted Chinese nationals in obtaining visas.
Asia Access also figures prominently in trips that Ortiz and Rendon made to the Far East, including China, Hong Kong, Taipei and Beijing.
The firm paid for four trips, a study by the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit organization, the Center for Public Integrity shows.
The organization recently tracked the travel of U.S. representatives and senators.
The trips were made at Asia Access’ expense by Ortiz and Rendon in 2000, 2003, 2004 and 2005 at a reported cost of nearly $48,000 combined.
Travis said Ortiz accepted the trips because he searches for ways to increase development in South Texas.
“One way to leverage that development has been to travel to Asia with South Texas business owners,” Travis said. “His presence with area businesses in the vibrant, dynamic Asian marketplace ensures their access to the decision makers at Asian companies, as well as to government offices there.”
And no, Travis said, neither Ortiz nor any staff member has facilitated the entry of Chinese nationals into the country.
Neither BND trips nor Ortiz’s trips have resulted in economic development here, Gayman said.
“We never got any business out of China,” Gayman added.
[e-mail]eperez-trevino@brownsvilleherald.com[/e-mail]
Posted on Jun 11, 06 | 12:01 am
