Yuri Mosha pleaded guilty in court: he helped to forge cases for asylum in the United States

Russian-speaking New York businessman Yuri Mosha pleaded guilty to advising clients from Russia on obtaining asylum in the United States. In particular, he helped them fabricate false stories about persecution at home, in order to later use them as grounds for obtaining asylum in America, writes Law 360.

moshu арестовали in March 2021, but then he denied all charges and did not admit his guilt. However, on October 31, 2022, he provided the court with documentstating that Mosha (on the advice of his lawyer) would like to change his previous guilty plea from “not guilty” to “guilty”.

Leading judge Barbara S. Moses and Moshi's attorney also signed the document on the same day. The sentencing of the businessman is scheduled for March 2023.

Vadim Glozman, the defendant's lawyer, said his client made the decision to plead guilty "after carefully weighing possible scenarios."

“In the end, he did what was in his interests and in the interests of his family,” Glozman summed up.

The essence of the charges

Mosha was part of a group charged in February 2021 with immigration fraud, specifically conspiring to mislead U.S. immigration officials. Members of the group created false stories of persecution and fabricated evidence in order for US officials to grant asylum in the US to individuals who had no right and reason to do so.

In the indictment, prosecutors said Mosha and another man, identified as Uladzimir Danskoy, ran a New York-based company called Russian America. She assisted residents of Russia and some other countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in applying for asylum in the United States, American visas, citizenship, and more.

On the subject: How Russians and Ukrainians get along on New York's Brighton Beach while their home countries are at war

Prosecutors said Mosha advised some clients to create and maintain online blogs critical of their home countries' leadership. Further, on behalf of these people, they applied for asylum in the United States, falsely claiming that the person would face danger if he was sent back to his homeland, because he would be persecuted there because of "political opinions." Mosha allegedly connected clients who were unable to blog on their own to a Ukrainian journalist named Timur Shcherbina, who prosecutors said wrote blogs for extra pay.

Mosha, among other things, provided clients with contacts for lawyers who, prosecutors allege, prepared applicants for interviews with immigration agents and advised them to lie under oath about their asylum applications. One of these lawyers was Yulia Grinberg, who is also accused in this case.

Mosha, Danskoy and Grinberg pleaded not guilty in March 2021 when they were arrested. Now Yuri Mosha decided to change his testimony and pleaded guilty. Whether other participants in the case filed the same petitions is still unknown.

Read more about the allegations and other alleged participants in the scheme. here.

The case against Moshi is pending in the Southern District of New York.