DISTRICT ATTORNEY - NEW YORK COUNTY

NEWS RELEASE
December 4, 2007

Contact: Barbara Thompson
212.335.9400

Manhattan District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau announced today the creation of an Immigrant Affairs Advisory Council and the appointment of Assistant District Attorney Daysi M. Mejia to the newly-created position of Attorney-in-Charge of the Office’s Immigrant Affairs Program.

The members of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Immigrant Affairs Advisory Council are:  Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, Brian O’Dwyer, Chairman of the Emerald Isle Immigration Center, Joel Magallan, Executive Director, Asociacion Tepeyac de New York, Inc., New York Immigration Coalition, Catholic Charities, and the Chinese Benevolent Association.

Assistant District Attorney Mejia will coordinate with the members of the District Attorney’s Advisory Council, as well as elected officials, government agencies, community-based and non-profit organizations that work with different immigrant groups in New York.  The members of the Advisory Council and Assistant District Attorney Mejia will focus on how the District Attorney’s Office can address issues that confront the immigrant community in New York.  Attorneys assigned to the program will work on diverse issues related to scams and frauds perpetrated against immigrants, as well as construction industry safety and employment practices.  Attorneys involved in the program will also engage in outreach to aid victims and witnesses who fear cooperating with law enforcement because of their immigration status.

The Immigrant Affairs Program will be based in the Special Prosecutions Bureau because attorneys in that Bureau have experience prosecuting people who have preyed on immigrants seeking residency or citizenship and have worked on construction industry cases. In addition, that Bureau has a well-established Intake Unit so that individuals with concerns or issues related to their immigration status and the criminal justice system can make complaints in person or over the telephone.  The Intake Unit telephone number is 212-335-8900

The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office has a long history of prosecuting cases involving immigrants as victims:

• Four men were sentenced to lengthy prison terms for stealing $3.3 million in a pyramid scheme from about 130 New York investors. The defendants targeted family members, friends and co-workers, primarily in the African-American and Caribbean communities in Brooklyn and Dominican communities in Manhattan.

• In September 2006, four leaders of two corrupt minority labor coalitions were indicted on charges of racketeering and extortion. The defendants used physical violence and threats of violence to extort money from builders and workers under the guise of obtaining jobs for minorities. Some of the victims were Asian American, African American, Argentinean, Bangladeshi, Irish, Portuguese, Jamaican, and West Indian.

• Prevailing wage cases in which many day laborers, who tend to be recent immigrants, receive a quarter to half of the wage that the contractors are required to pay them by law for government funded projects.

• A Connecticut man who pretended to be an immigration lawyer has been charged with scamming seven undocumented Irish immigrants out of approximately $30,000 by promising them green cards and citizenship. 

Ms. Mejia, who joined the District Attorney’s Office in 2001, is a graduate of Rutgers College.   She received her law degree from Temple University.

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