GoLocal Investigation Leads to Federal Guilty Plea for Man Who Preyed on Immigrants
Thursday, December 17, 2020
Bienvenido “Alex” Peralta Martinez, a Central Falls resident pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Providence to charges he defrauded numerous people who had recently immigrated from the Dominican Republic by pocketing fees he told them that they had to pay when submitting their naturalization applications.
In January of 2018, GoLocal unveiled the scheme. A multiple-month investigation by GoLocal tracked the enterprise that had tied Peralta Martinez to a NY-businessman barred from representing immigrants.
On Wednesday the U.S. Attorney for Rhode Island said in a statement that Peralta Martinez admitted he knew that their fees were waived but lied to his victims to take their money.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTFurther, Peralta Martinez admitted that he falsely told people who sought his assistance in the preparation and submission of naturalization applications that he was required to submit a fee along with the application when, in fact, he typed and signed his victims’ names on a form requesting that the fees be waived.
Peralta Martinez in court admitted that he demanded that payment for the fee be made in the form of money orders. The victims paid Peralta Martinez for the preparation of their naturalization applications, and then Peralta Martinez stole money from them by pocketing the proceeds of those money orders.
Latest Following GoLocal Investigation
The 2018 GoLocalProv.com investigation revealed a tie between Peralta Martinez's involvement in a locally registered non-profit and Carlos Davila, a convicted child molester and murderer from New York who was barred from representing immigrants in 2017 and fined $1.3 million. Now, a leading immigration attorney is claiming fraud by the organization in Rhode Island.
Davila and Peralta Martinez at the time were listed by the State of Rhode Island as being the President and Vice-President of "A New Beginning for Immigrants' Rights," which a Venezuelan national told GoLocal he paid over $1,000 to help obtain a work permit, only to receive what he said was fraudulent paperwork.
The fraud victim then contacted attorney Joseph Molina Flynn, the President of the Rhode Island Latino PAC, for help.
“You could certainly call this immigration based extortion,” said Flynn, after the victim, who has lived and worked in Rhode Island for decades, reached out "A New Beginning" to obtain a proper work permit. The victim thought he was going through a legal process.
“This is the first time I heard of this operation but upon looking up the name, I realize I had heard of it previously,” said Flynn. “‘I’d heard about the Bronx operation, but I hadn't known it had come to Rhode Island.”
“New York City's Department of Consumer Affairs hit Bronx businessman Carlos Davila with its biggest fine ever for an immigration service provider — more than $1.3 million. A joint investigation by Telemundo 47 and WNYC radio exposed Davila's alleged practices of charging hundreds of dollars for bogus ID cards for people facing deportation," reported NBC New York in July 2017.
While Davila faced sanctions in New York, it was Peralta Martinez that the victim said he had all the interactions with -- and paid all the money to -- in Rhode Island.
Peralta Martinez, when reached about his role in the organization, tried to distance himself from the controversy, or any wrongdoing.
"Carlos Davila was a man I met a while ago through a church, when I was taking some seminars," said Peralta Martinez. "We made a relationship, and started a not-for-profit here, to serve the community. You're probably hinting at the situation that happened [New York] but I don't know what happened there."
Peralta Martinez admitted in 2018 to GoLocal that he and Davila were business partners.
"I put in my resignation with the organization before that all happened...there was some funny business, [Davila] was hard to get in touch with over the phone," said Martinez. "He did all the filings, and he as accredited to. If anyone reached out to me, I gave then [Davila's] office number and that was the end of that. After I heard of what was going on, I wanted no part of it."
An examination of the paperwork provided by the victim shows that the handwriting for the bogus paperwork for the "court date" Boston is the same used for the filing with the Rhode Island Corporations database -- and signed by Peralta Martinez.
“In October 2016, I went to this meeting -- it was in Providence near Elmwood. There were people there who wanted to see how fix their immigration status and Venezuelans in particular,” said the victim. “I went to the first interview in February 2017. It was with Martinez. He basically took my info, told me how the process was going to be [for a work permit], and how long it was going to be. He told me it would be around 3 months, and while it wasn't going to be free, but it wouldn't be expensive.”
“From that point, we met a few more times. I didn’t think he was going to take advantage of me, because he was Hispanic,” said the victim, who explained that as more time went on, he began to get nervous — and unable to get in touch with the organization.
“[Martinez] contacted me and said he changed his number because he said he was having problems,” said the victim. “But some friends of mine said you're too trusting, don't be like that, some lawyers lie. I said I had concerns and went twice, no one was there, there was the same amount of furniture, but no one there -- then they changed the storefront.”
The victim said he demanded all the paperwork after having paid over $1,000 to the organization, and that it was a cousin, who had helped her ex-husband get his work permit, that raised the flag on what he got back — including paperwork which appeared to show a hearing at immigration court in Boston, but turned out to be bogus.
“I called the Boston court where it was supposed to be,” said the victim. “The woman said she had that room, but there are no hearings on that date."
“I didn’t think I’d be here this long, I thought I’d be back [in Venezuala] by now,” said the victim. “I’m not political -- but following my country's problems, I'm more and more concerned. My relatives don't eat every day, my sister used to be well-off. Her words were she thought she'd never see the day of someone going on the street to ask for food in a city that's supposed to have money.”
Pled Guilty, Sentencing in March of 2021
Appearing before U.S. District Court William E. Smith, Peralta Martinez pleaded guilty to three counts of mail fraud and three counts of aggravated identity theft, announced United States Attorney Aaron L. Weisman and Homeland Security Investigations Acting Special Agent in Charge David Magdycz.
Peralta Martinez is scheduled to be sentenced on March 12, 2021.
The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Milind M. Shah.
The matter was investigated by Homeland Security Investigations.
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