Former North Texas independent school district executive director of human resources pleads guilty to conspiracy to falsify immigration documents

DALLAS — A North Texas man pleaded guilty in federal court Tuesday to one count of conspiracy to commit false statements in connection with immigration documents.

This guilty plea was announced by U.S. Attorney John Parker of the Northern District of Texas.  This investigation was jointly conducted by the following agencies:   U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the Department of Labor’s Office of the Inspector General, the Department of Education’s Office of the Inspector General, and the FBI.

Victor Leos, 63, of Garland, Texas, faces a maximum penalty of five years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine.  Sentencing is set for Aug. 28, 2017.

According to plea documents, Leos was employed by Garland Independent School District (GISD), located in Garland, Texas from 1998 to 2013.  He was responsible for recruiting teachers from Mexico, Central and South America, and the Philippines to fill open teaching positions at GISD.  From around 2007 to around 2012, Leos engaged in a criminal conspiracy with outside recruiters to recruit and hire foreign teachers that GISD did not necessarily need.  Leos benefited by receiving kickbacks in the form of inflated fees to teach orientation classes, travel and other forms of remuneration.  After the foreign teachers were employed at GISD on H-1B temporary visas, Leos knew they were unlikely to qualify for Form 9089s (Applications for Permanent Employment Certification).  To further the conspiracy, Leos knowingly signed and filed falsified Form 9089s with the Department of Labor (DOL) to sponsor the teachers for employment-based U.S. permanent resident applications.

Specifically, from Aug. 27, 2012 to Dec. 6, 2012, Leos signed and filed for GISD 38 Form 9089s in which he knowingly made false statements.  In each Form 9089, Leos certified that all U.S. workers who applied for the job opening were rejected for lawful job-related reasons; Leos knew this was not the case.  To support these false statements, Leos created recruitment reports which contained additional false statements regarding the number of U.S. applicants for the open positions and the reasons for the rejection of the U.S. applicants.  Leos had these recruitment reports submitted to DOL to support the falsified Form 9089s that were also submitted.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Russell Fusco is in charge of the prosecution, which was assisted by Assistant U.S. Attorney John Kull, both from Northern District of Texas.