Brooklyn Immigrants Injured By Bigamist Guyanese Green Card Visa Scam

A convicted bigamist posing as a veteran immigration lawyer scammed thousands of dollars from Guyanese immigrants in Brooklyn and gave them advice so bad they now face deportation, prosecutors said Thursday.

Wilmer Rivera Melendez promised green cards but pursued avenues that would never yield them, changed his phone number to evade his “clients” when they started asking questions and even startled some by proposing they marry him in order to get legal residency, prosecutors said.

Melendez, 60, denied the allegations, which add to a series of far-flung and colorful brushes with the law. Records show he was imprisoned for bigamy in Georgia; prosecutors said he also was convicted in an office burglary in the U.S. Virgin Islands and broke out of an Ohio jail through a ceiling hole in 1971.

Read the full story in Brooklyn Eagle