International Employee Recruiter Sentenced To Two Years In Prison For Visa Fraud

Greenbelt, Maryland – U.S. District Judge Paul W. Grimm sentenced Milen Radomirski, age 34, a Bulgarian national residing in Germantown, Maryland, today to two years in prison for visa fraud. Judge Grimm also ordered Radomirski to forfeit $100,000.

“American businesses are permitted to sponsor foreign workers to enter the United States lawfully under the H-2B visa program, but Milen Radomirski undermined that program by falsely vouching for hundreds of aliens who were not expected to comply with the terms of the visa,” said U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein.

The sentence was announced by United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein; Special Agent in Charge William Winter of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI); Special Agent in Charge Bill Jones, of the Washington Regional Office, U.S. Department of Labor - Office of Inspector General, Office of Labor Racketeering and Fraud Investigations; Special Agent in Charge Niall Meehan of the Washington Field Office of the U.S. Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service; and District Director Gregory Collett of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Baltimore District Office.

According to his plea agreement, from 2003 to August 2013, Radomirski worked for a pool service company in Maryland that provided lifeguards and pool maintenance in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. As part of his employment, Radomirski recruited international workers that his company could sponsor to work in the U.S. on H-2B visas and other short-term visas. Radomirski admitted that he fraudulently obtained more than 100 H-2B visas. An H-2B visa is a non-immigrant visa granted to citizens of other countries to work in the U.S. on a temporary basis.

From 2006 through 2011, Radomirski’s company submitted applications for approximately 789 H-2B visas. Radomirski’s company certified to the U.S. Department of Labor that it had not sought or received payment from the employee to obtain the visa and specified to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services the job in which the foreign national supposedly would be employed. Sponsored workers could not legally be employed by any other company. The company was required to notify DHS if an H-2B worker failed to report to work within five days after their specified start date or if a worker absconded or was terminated.

Radomirski admitted that he charged visa beneficiaries money in exchange for including them on his company’s petitions for H-2B visas. Radomirski knew that many of the visa beneficiaries would not work for his company at all, would only work at his company for a short period of time, or would work for other employers in addition to his company.

United States Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein praised the HSI Baltimore; U.S. Department of Labor - Office of Inspector General, Office of Labor Racketeering and Fraud Investigations, U.S. Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service, and USCIS, for their work in the investigation. Mr. Rosenstein thanked Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas P. Windom, who prosecuted the case.