Federal lawyer gets 30 days for forging document

Legal Events

A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement attorney was sentenced to 30 days in jail Wednesday for forging a document to make it look like a Mexican man who wanted to stay in the United States was not eligible to do so.

Jonathan M. Love was also sentenced to 100 hours of community service, must resign his law license and must pay Ignacio Lanuza $12,000 in restitution, Seattlepi.com reported. Love, 58, previously pleaded guilty to a federal deprivation of rights misdemeanor charge, acknowledging he used his position to deprive Lanuza of due process.

The U.S. Attorney's Office says Lanuza was stopped by an ICE officer in 2008, and ICE started removal proceedings.

Love was assigned the case in 2009 and submitted a document to the Immigration Court that he said was signed by Lanuza in 2000. Prosecutors say Love doctored the date to make Lanuza ineligible to have his removal cancelled.

Lanuza should have been eligible to contest his deportation because he had been living in the United States for over 10 years, showed good moral character and had a family made up of U.S. citizens. Love's forgery was meant to make it appear as though Lanuza hadn't been in the United States for 10 years and was therefore ineligible for deportation relief.

The motive for Love's actions remains unclear. He said in court Wednesday he didn't know why he did it.

Related listings

  • Supreme Court to swear in large group of deaf lawyers

    Supreme Court to swear in large group of deaf lawyers

    Legal Events 04/16/2016

    Mobile phones ordinarily are strictly forbidden in the marble courtroom of the nation's highest court, but the justices are making an exception next week when roughly a dozen deaf and hard-of-hearing lawyers will be admitted to the Supreme Court bar....

  • New York's top court: Parents can legally eavesdrop on kids

    New York's top court: Parents can legally eavesdrop on kids

    Legal Events 04/05/2016

    New York's highest court says parents can legally eavesdrop on young children, establishing an exception to state law against wiretaps without the consent of at least one person on a call. The Court of Appeals split 4-3 in deciding such monitoring is...

  • Supreme Court rejects Blagojevich appeal in corruption case

    Supreme Court rejects Blagojevich appeal in corruption case

    Legal Events 03/27/2016

    The Supreme Court on Monday rejected former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich's appeal of his corruption convictions that included his attempt to sell the vacant Senate seat once occupied by President Barack Obama.   The justices let stand an appeal...

Grounds for Divorce in Ohio - Sylkatis Law, LLC

A divorce in Ohio is filed when there is typically “fault” by one of the parties and party not at “fault” seeks to end the marriage. A court in Ohio may grant a divorce for the following reasons:
• Willful absence of the adverse party for one year
• Adultery
• Extreme cruelty
• Fraudulent contract
• Any gross neglect of duty
• Habitual drunkenness
• Imprisonment in a correctional institution at the time of filing the complaint
• Procurement of a divorce outside this state by the other party

Additionally, there are two “no-fault” basis for which a court may grant a divorce:
• When the parties have, without interruption for one year, lived separate and apart without cohabitation
• Incompatibility, unless denied by either party

However, whether or not the the court grants the divorce for “fault” or not, in Ohio the party not at “fault” will not get a bigger slice of the marital property.