Immigration officer
forged visa document
PHILIPSBURG--Immigration Officer Alessandra Priest (34) was found guilty in the Court of First Instance on Friday of having forged a visa application form. The other charges on the indictment were not considered proven. She will not be incarcerated anymore because Judge Luis de Lannoy considered the time she had spent in pre-trial detention to be sufficient.
The judge sentenced her to two months and one week.
Priest had denied all allegations, stating she had never done anything illegal.
The judge agreed on most points, but found her guilty of forging a visa application form in which she had falsely indicated that two persons from Haiti would be staying with her while vacationing in St. Maarten.
She had also stated that she would be paying all their expenses, but in reality they would be staying with Haitian relatives here.
Priest was detained from June 15 until August 21 on drug smuggling, bribery, and forgery charges. She was also accused of revealing classified information as a civil servant.
Prosecutor Dikran Sarian had said Tuesday that he considered Priest guilty of all charges, except the charge of having assisted in a drug-smuggling operation. He had asked for a conditional sentence of nine months with two years’ probation, with reduction of 67 days spent in pre-trial detention, and 240 hours of community service.
