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DA: Phony Chinatown Lawyer Scammed Immigrants With Offers of Green Cards

By DNAinfo Staff on August 23, 2010 6:16pm  | Updated on August 24, 2010 5:46am

A Queens man had a phony law office on Grand Street, the DA said Monday.
A Queens man had a phony law office on Grand Street, the DA said Monday.
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By Shayna Jacobs

DNAinfo Reporter/Producer

MANHATTAN SUPREME COURT — A man prosecutors believe scammed as many as 300 Chinese immigrants while posing as an immigration lawyer was indicted and arraigned on grand larceny charges Monday.

Te-hu Tsuei, 54, who is apparently not a legal U.S. resident himself, allegedly ran a fake law office in Chinatown where he offered fraudulent immigration services to local clients at an average of $2,000 per person.

He pretended he could get clients green cards and permanent residency cards while operating out of an office at 230 Grand St. between Nov. 2007 and May 2009, prosecutors said.

Although Tsuei is currently only charged with defrauding two purported clients out of $6,000, the Manhattan District Attorney believes there may be numerous other victims and is hoping more people will come forward as the case progresses.

Prosecutors said they found more than $175,000 in unaccounted for cash deposited in Tsuei's bank account — a suspicious sum considering he had no legitimate employment, the Manhattan DA said in court.

"Once he committed these crimes he shut his law practice in Chinatown and disappeared," said Assistant District Attorney Melissa Pennington at Tsuei's arraignment Monday.

Tsuei, who owns a home in Jamaica, Queens, was held on $500,000 bail.

He was appointed an attorney on Monday but said he has the money to hire a lawyer himself.