Leonard C Boyle, United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, announced that ARASH VAKHSHOURI, 43, of Las Vegas, Nevada, was sentenced today by U.S. District Judge Janet Bond Arterton in New Haven to three years of probation for submitting false documents to a government agency.
According to court documents and statements made in court, between January and May 2017, Vakhshouri drafted and sent a total of seven fraudulent letters to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) in Connecticut purporting to be from two individuals who had applied to USCIS to become legal residents of the U.S. in March 2016. The letters, which included the victims’ names, passport numbers, application numbers and alien file numbers, fraudulently requested the withdrawal or cancellation of the victims’ applications for legal permanent resident status in the U.S. Vakhshouri was attempting to have the two victims be forced to return to Iran, where they are religious minorities.
Vakhshouri was arrested on June 20, 2019, and he pleaded guilty to the offense on June 8, 2021.
Judge Arterton ordered Vakhshouri to perform 100 hours of community service while he is on supervised release, and to pay $9,129 in restitution the victims.
This matter was investigated by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the Manchester Police Department. The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Nathaniel J. Gentile and Conor M. Reardon.