Navy Reserve Commander sentenced in visa scam

CMDR Jeromy Pittman was sentenced to two and a half years Monday for his role in scamming Afghan visa applicants. His potential sentence was 45 years, so he is getting off easy.

Cmdr. Jeromy Pittmann, 53, of Pensacola, Florida, accepted bribes from Afghan nationals in exchange for drafting, submitting and verifying fraudulent letters of recommendation for Afghan citizens who applied for SIVs with the State Department.

One of the paths to a visa is the Special Immigrants’ Visa. In this case, they claimed they were in danger from the Taliban for acting as interpreters and linguists for the Americans.

The State Department offers a limited number of SIVs to enter the United States. Pittman signed more than 20 letters stating he knew and supervised Afghan national applicants while they worked as translators in support of the U.S. military and NATO.

The letters represented that the applicants’ lives were in danger because the Taliban considered them to be traitors and that Pittmann believed they did not pose any threat to the U.S. national security, federal prosecutors said.

“In truth, Pittmann did not know the applicants and had no basis for recommending them for SIVs,” the Justice Department said. “In exchange for the fraudulent letters, Pittmann received several thousands of dollars in bribes.”

To avoid detection, Pittmann received the bribe money through an intermediary and created false invoices showing that he was receiving the funds for legitimate work unrelated to his military service, authorities said.

Wonder if any of the Afghans could have been baddies?

The SIV system has come under scrutiny after an Afghan man living in Oklahoma was charged earlier this month with allegedly plotting a terror attack on Election Day on behalf of the Islamic State terror group.

Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, 27, worked for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as a security guard in Afghanistan before entering the United States in 2021 on a SIV.Fox News

The article does not say he was one of the ones Pittman expedited, and says he was possibly radicalized  after he reached the US. But it shows vetting is needed, right?

Pittman first appeared in federal court in March 2022 on charges of accepting bribes and conspiring to commit visa fraud. Court documents alleged Pittmann worked with an unnamed co-conspirator in Kabul who solicited Pittmann’s assistance back in February 2018. The documents indicate Pittmann and the co-conspirator met during Pittmann’s deployment to Afghanistan in 2014 and 2015.  Navy Times

According to the indictment in his case, an unidentified co-conspirator reached out to Pittmann in February 2018 and asked for letters of recommendation for SIV applications.

“It’s for my cousins I have 5 of them to go if you can do it will be good and they will pay for it,” the person is quoted as saying before sending an email with “a recommendation letter format for your review.”

Two weeks later, Pittmann and his co-conspirator negotiated a price and settled on $500 per person and the unnamed partner told him he had three applications ready for a total of $1,500 and “I will have another 5 next week so will be 2500.”  Military.com

Although the articles don’t specifically say anything about reduction in rank (well deserved) or loss of retirement benefits (also well deserved), I am truly gobsmacked that someone would trash an otherwise OK career (in addition to his campaign medals, Pittmann was awarded the Joint Service Commendation Medal, the Joint Service Achievement Medal, and three Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medals Military.com) for what appears to be twenty grand. WTH was he thinking?

Category: "Teh Stoopid", Crime, Navy