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US court jails Guyana-born immigration officer
Isaac R. Baichu
NEW YORK, CMC – A New York judge has jailed a Guyana-born US immigration officer after he pleaded guilty to coercing oral sex from a 22-year-old Colombian woman.
Justice James P. Griffin of New York State Supreme Court sentenced Isaac R. Baichu, 49, to almost four years in prison in the negotiated sentence.
He had faced up to seven years in prison. But his sentence was reduced in the plea agreement.
Baichu’s demands for sex from the woman were caught on tape by her in December 2007, prosecutors said.
Baichu, a former adjudicator for the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, however, still hoped to avoid the plea deal, when he appeared in the Queens, New York courtroom in a wheelchair.
His lawyer asked Justice Griffin to delay his sentencing so he could continue medical treatment. He was hit by a city bus in April 2009.
But the judge was not moved by the request.
“State corrections have excellent doctors who could treat him,” the judge said, adding “I am particularly offended by the nature of this offense.
“A government officer preying; using his position to prey on people who are trying to do the right thing when they apply for citizenship.
And the victim here was not trying to beat the system. She was trying to do what she was supposed to do, and she suffered as a result,” he added.
The unidentified victim told the court that her life has not been the same after the encounter with Baichu. Her name was withheld because she is considered the victim of a sex crime.
Baichu was arrested after he met with the green card applicant in a parked car in Queens, where he demanded and received oral sex.
Prosecutors said the Guyana-born immigration officer had handled about 8,000 green card applications during his three years as an adjudicator in the Garden City, New York, office of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, part of the federal Department of Homeland Security.
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