Municipal clerks turn sleuths to thwart sham marriages

CUMBERLAND, R.I. -- Patricia Skurka knows every street in this town. And she knew the address a couple had written on their marriage application did not exist.

Standing at an employee's desk one day in early 2005, Skurka, the Cumberland town clerk, sensed this was not an innocent mistake. Something was amiss. And maybe it went beyond this one couple.

Skurka ordered her staff to bring her all the applications filed for the year. They found 35 others listing phony addresses.

Then they noticed other things. Couples who showed up seeking marriage licenses sometimes could barely understand each other. The duos always consisted of a US citizen and an immigrant. And they could not say where and when they were getting married.

The eagle-eyed municipal servants had stumbled upon a criminal scheme, in which US citizens were being paid to marry illegal immigrants from Brazil and Africa, giving them legal status.

The clerks' detective work, over many months, led to the arrest Oct. 23 of the alleged ringleader of the operation, Carlos Da Veiga of New Bedford. Dozens of immigrants now face deportation.

"It was just luck that I looked down and said 'That's not right,' " said Skurka, 69, a former police clerk who has worked for the town for 23 years. "Some people would look and say, 'What's that? Oh, I don't care.' But I do care."

Sham marriage schemes have grown increasingly common in Rhode Island. Unlike Massachusetts, where couples must wait three days between submitting their application for a license and marrying, Rhode Island allows couples to get their marriage licenses immediately.

That has made the state a magnet for immigrants eager to find a way around the nation's tightening immigration laws. An immigrant who is here illegally, or who is not a permanent resident, can qualify for citizenship if he or she stays married for three years. And the immigrant can usually get a green card quickly.

Similar schemes have been uncovered across the country. In Virginia's Arlington County, 22 people were arrested and charged with arranging more than 1,000 sham marriages between African immigrants and US citizens.

In the Rhode Island case, authorities say, Da Veiga arranged at least 15 fraudulent marriages, charging the illegal immigrants up to $9,000 apiece and paying the US citizen $1,500. Under the deal, the immigrant agreed to pay the citizen $200 a month after the marriage until their residency application was approved.

Da Veiga is expected to plead guilty to "knowingly conspiring with others to enter into marriages" to evade immigration law. He is expected to serve five years in federal prison.

The US attorney's office in Rhode Island, which brought the case against Da Veiga, acknowledged a debt to city and town clerks, who are increasingly the first to discover efforts to evade immigration laws.

After contacting authorities, Skurka and her staff became sleuths. They adopted an unassuming manner in front of the couples, but closely observed their behavior. They rushed to make copies of their documents , and kept investigators informed as the parade of seemingly loveless couples continued.

"We didn't stop them, the minute they came in the girls would send someone in to tell me 'We have another one,' and I'd call the investigator," Skurka said.

Six miles up the road from Cumberland, Woonsocket City Clerk Pauline Payeur has discovered what she believes is an even bigger operation.

Two years ago, she noticed couples flooding into her office to get married, and they were all coming from Worcester. "They're going by 20 town halls from here to Worcester, and they choose Woonsocket?" Payeur exclaimed. "Obviously they must have been trying to hide something."

The couples, usually an African immigrant and a US citizen, often were accompanied by an African woman, who seemed to be advising them. Unlike the immigrants in Cumberland, these immigrants spoke English fluently and appeared highly educated, vital records clerk Judith Labonte said.

And, right after receiving their licenses, the couples would call in a Woonsocket judge and get married on the spot, wherever they could find a space.

"It was ridiculous," Payeur said, sitting in her small office. "They'd get married right in the hallway, or at first they were right in here. After a while, we said, 'This is not a wedding chapel.' The phones would be ringing, I'd have two witnesses and the bride and the groom and the judge standing here. I mean, I'm a nice person, but after a while, I got to say!"

Payeur said she issued 200 to 300 marriage licenses to couples from Worcester last year alone. The city of Woonsocket typically issues a total of 400 licenses annually. Payeur, 61, who has worked at city hall since graduating from high school, had never seen anything like it.

The small woman with the rat-a-tat speaking style and her staff are now working with immigration officers, gathering documents and supplying information. Federal authorities declined to comment on the investigation.

Inside the document vault one day last week, Payeur pulled a thick, red-bound volume of marriage certificates off a shelf and opened it at random.

"Worcester. Worcester. Worcester," she read off the certificates, turning the pages. "Gambia. Two Brazils right there. Ghana. Kenya. Bolivia. Senegal. Every page. I kid you not. Let me tell you. It's mind-boggling."

Yvonne Abraham can be reached at abraham@globe.com.