Judge’s Verdict In Immigration Case Appealed

OCEAN CITY — Just two weeks after being sentenced to 18 months in prison for carrying out an alleged five-year scheme during which he assisted dozens of foreign nationals gain asylum in the U.S., an Ocean City man filed an appeal last week in U.S. District Court challenging his conviction and sentence.

On Feb. 26, U.S. District Court Judge James Brednar sentenced Gasim Manafov, 36, of Ocean City, to 18 months in federal prison followed by a year of supervised release for conspiring to commit immigration fraud. According to a plea agreement reached in December, from 2007 to 2012, Manafov conspired with other in assisting roughly 70 individuals in fraudulently applying for asylum benefits in the U.S. and received around $210,000 in return for his assistance in the process. Last week, Manafov, through his attorneys, filed an appeal in the U.S. District Court’s Fourth District in the hopes of appealing his conviction and later sentencing.

In many of the cases, Manafov provided foreign nationals on work visas in Ocean City and throughout the region with fake stories describing how the applicants’ families were hurt or killed in their native countries because of their political affiliations and helped them prove to U.S. authorities they would face the same fate if they were forced to go back to their homelands.
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