A federal immigration judge who presides over sensitive visa and deportation cases sought a financial partnership with a Virginia firm whose clients could end up before him in court, according to a tape recording seized in a government raid.
Judge D. Anthony Rogers' conduct appears to violate federal conflict of interest regulations and prompted a memo in March from an investigator for the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service expressing exasperation that Rogers remains on the bench in Dallas.
In the taped conversation, the judge bragged that his business relationship with an Arab sheik would generate millions of dollars in business and said that a $20,000 fee for referring each potential client to the Interbank Group was not sufficient. The Herndon, Va., firm helped foreign residents gain permanent U.S. residency under a federal program that required them to invest at least $500,000 in an American business.
"Let me go ahead and just be as abrupt as I can about it. If you think for some reason or other I am going to bring you $30 million worth of potential investors for a $20,000-a-head pop, I'm not interested in doing that," Rogers said. "I'm not that dumb."
The judge said he was interested in "a more coordinated and partnership approach to a relationship with you all."
The Code of Ethics for immigration judges issued by the U.S. Justice Department, which oversees the nation's 220 such jurists through a subdivision, the Executive Office for Immigration Review, bars them from engaging in outside employment activities, "including seeking or negotiating for employment, that conflict with official government duties or responsibilities."
In the taped conversation, Rogers spoke repeatedly of being in partnership with Majed Abdeljaber, a man who had been practicing before him in court without an American law license, records show. In 2000, the two formalized their arrangement when both became officers of a Texas corporation involved with foreign investors with business interests in the United States.
Rogers, an immigration judge since 1993, declined to comment. He remains on the bench, earning $132,636 a year.
'Conflict was obvious'
"We did have several petitions in Texas, and we were concerned," said James A. Geisler, a principal of Interbank.
Geisler, who said he secretly taped the conversation "for our own protection," corroborated its contents in an interview with The Sun.
He said he rebuffed the judge's overture, fearing that he was being set up.
"The conflict was obvious," said his partner, James F. O'Connor. "We were concerned that Rogers would make trouble for us with the INS."
Geisler and O'Connor are now in federal prison after being convicted in 2001 of filing fraudulent visa applications.
A few months after the tape was made, on March 4, 1998, it was seized in a raid by INS investigators. Four years later, in a memo addressed to Joseph R. Greene, the assistant commissioner of the INS, an agency official complained that Rogers was still serving, despite a negative report on the incident by the inspector general of the Department of Justice.
"The DOJ/IG reportedly recommended several months ago that the Executive Office for Immigration Review terminate the judge, who, at last check was still on the bench and scheduled to preside over the hearing of an individual arrested and held in custody as a 'special interest case' after September 11," said the memo, which was obtained by The Sun.
Rogers was unaware that his conversation was being taped. Geisler said he had a duplicate of the seized tape locked way in a safe deposit box.
Both O'Connor, an inmate of the federal penitentiary in Cumberland, Md., and Geisler, who is serving his term at the Petersburg Federal Prison Camp in Virginia, said they would be willing to discuss their dealings with Rogers with federal officials. So far, they said, no investigator has spoken with them.
O'Connor and Geisler were sentenced last January to terms of nine years, four months, and 10 years, four months, respectively.
A spokesman for the Executive Office for Immigration Review said the office could not comment on internal personnel matters due to federal privacy laws.
Paul Martin, a spokesman for the Justice Department's inspector general, declined to comment on the recommendation to terminate Rogers.
Investors and visas
Interbank was one of a handful of companies set up to market a little-known investor visa program created by Congress in 1990. Under the program, foreigners were to invest $500,000 in American businesses in return for lifetime U.S. residency rights. But Interbank clients actually invested just $125,000, with the balance accounted for by what federal prosecutors charged was a phony loan.
The judge had been in contact with Interbank before the March 4, 1998, telephone call to his chambers, Geisler and O'Connor said.
Geisler said Abdeljaber learned about Interbank in 1997 when he attended one of the seminars Interbank conducted with immigration attorneys across the country in an effort to gain referrals for its new investment programs. At the time, he did not have any direct conversations with Interbank officials.
About two months later, Geisler said, Abdeljaber and Rogers appeared unannounced at Interbank's corporate headquarters in Herndon, a Washington suburb.
Geisler said he didn't know at first that Rogers was an immigration judge. But he said it was clear from the start that Rogers was not content with the usual sliding scale of referral fees that Interbank was offering to immigration lawyers - fees that ranged from $12,000 to $20,000 per referral, depending on volume.
"You can pay a referral fee for anybody that sends you a piece of business, you can do that," the judge said in the taped conversation. "I believe that we were talking about a more coordinated and partnership approach to a relationship with you all in which we were going to be able, theoretically, to provide you all with a significant amount of investor money."
Geisler said that once Interbank officials learned that Rogers was an immigration judge, they became concerned that if their business relationship soured, Rogers could cause them problems. His account was supported by O'Connor.
On the bench
As an immigration judge, Rogers, who has been on the bench since 1993 after a career as a military advocate, hears appeals from decisions by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, a Justice Department subdivision until its recent shift to the new Department of Homeland Security. His decisions, in turn, can be appealed in the federal courts.
Among the cases decided by Rogers, one of four immigration judges stationed in Dallas, are some that have made headlines, including the case of an Algerian who sought asylum. Rogers ordered the man deported in 1997 in a case that included secret government evidence that even his lawyer was not allowed to see.
In another case, Rogers ruled that an Iranian woman who falsely accused two Dallas Cowboys football players of sexual assault did not have to leave the country despite a perjury conviction stemming from her accusation.
Caught on tape
According to Geisler and O'Connor, the visit by Rogers and Abdeljaber did not result in any final agreement and the next major contact was the phone call to Dallas placed by Geisler on March 4, 1998. Geisler said another Interbank official, Thomas Van Gorder listened in.
Van Gorder, now working for another firm in the Washington area, did not return repeated telephone calls.
Unknown to the judge, a tape recorder was running during most of that three-way conversation, Geisler said. Only the last few minutes were lost because the tape ran out.
The original tape of the call was sitting in a desk drawer five months later, on Aug. 26, 1998, when federal agents swooped down on the offices of Interbank as part of the investigation that would lead to the charges against Geisler and O'Connor. The tape, like nearly everything else, was packed into boxes and hauled off by federal agents in a caravan of rental trucks, according to witnesses.
After some small talk, the conference call between the judge and two Virginia executives turned to business. The judge was pleasant but firm.
He really wasn't interested in the traditional deal offered by Interbank that would net him up to $20,000 per client, according to the tape. He wanted more - an ownership interest.
In a dialogue speckled with "you alls," the judge explained that his well-connected business partner, Abdeljaber, had clients all over the Middle East and that they had an ongoing relationship with an unnamed Arab sheik.
The INS memo cited a particularly memorable comment from the telephone conversation, a cautionary remark made by Geisler near the end of the tape.
Expressing concern that he did not want their potential partnership to have any adverse effects on his business, Geisler told Rogers: "I don't want you in trouble, and I don't want to be in trouble with the INS."
"Sure," Rogers responded.
"We're both feeding out of that trough," Geisler said.
"Yeah," Rogers responded.
Rogers made frequent references to Abdeljaber and identified him as his partner, according to the tape. Rogers also referred to the fact that he and Abdeljaber had met previously with Interbank officials in Virginia.
'Corrupting influence'
In the memo to Greene, the assistant INS commissioner, the conversation was described as an example of the "corrupting influence" of the investor visa program.
The memo stated that the taped conversation "reflects that the judge was not satisfied with Interbank's "typical immigration attorney deal," under which attorneys were paid up to $20,000 for each alien referred to Interbank; he also wanted "revenue at the back end."
"Also discussed during the conversation were the judge's planned trip to Riyadh and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and his "agency relationship" with "some sheik," the memo continued.
"We have already got an agency relationship developed with some sheik over there who's managed to pull some of this together," Rogers said in the conversation.
Geisler said there was a discussion about sending an Interbank representative along with Rogers for the trip to Saudi Arabia, but it never happened.
"We never got past the threats," said Geisler.
The Saharas
After a deal with Interbank fell through, the judge and Abdeljabar became officers of a Texas company called Sahara Trading Co. Inc., formed in early 2000, Texas records show. Abdeljabar was listed as president and Rogers as senior vice president. Both were listed as directors. The company's corporate charter was forfeited last year because of the firm's failure to file required tax reports.
In 1997, Abdeljaber was cited by a federal court judge in Texas for practicing law without a American license. His response said he was licensed as an attorney by the Supreme Court of Jordan. Between 1995 and 1999, he had five cases that were assigned at some point to Rogers, according to Gregory Gagne, a spokesman for the Executive Office for Immigration Review.
Abdeljaber, who still works out of a law office in Dallas, is under investigation by Texas authorities on charges that he has continued to hold himself out as an attorney while lacking an American law license. He did not return repeated telephone calls.
Rogers has been affiliated with several companies using the name Sahara. Annual financial disclosure reports filed by Rogers with the Justice Department show that in 1999 he listed an ownership interest in a company called Sahara Investment and Trading Co. Inc., which was listed as a "private partnership."
A handwritten notation by a Justice Department official who reviewed Rogers' filing, states: "Filer reported no conflict of interests as to Sahara Investment and Trading Company, Inc."
A year later, Rogers reported an ownership interest in Sahara Trading Co. Inc and Sahara Group Inc.
Rogers' filings give no indication that his business partner had made several appearances in his courtroom, and his disclosure for 1998 makes no mention of his business with Abdeljaber, even though his taped 1998 telephone conversation shows an active business.
Describing his partner during the March 4 telephone call, Rogers said, "Communicating with Majed is wonderful on some levels and not easy on others. ... So, I'm giving my partner a hard time. He's got his own style."
For previous installments in the immigration series, go to www.sunspot.net/immigration.