Yale Law School Caught Up in Con Job Police: Green Card Scam Was Run From Law School

Although previously posted on this blog, this story is just to delicious for this Harvard Law alum to pass up again.  Ralph Cucciniello has claimed to be several things in what authorities call a long history as a scam artist – a television producer, a psychologist, even a nursing home operator. But investigators say it took a phony affiliation with Yale Law School Cucciniello to really hit pay dirt. Posing as a law professor with an expertise in immigration law, they say, Cucciniello has scammed hundreds of undocumented workers from Ireland into thinking he could secure them a green card – for a $5,000 fee.  Click here and here for stories.

Law enforcement officials in New York and Connecticut are scrambling to find all his victims and answer a nagging question: How did a scam artist who once was in the federal witness protection program secure office space in one of the most prestigious law schools in the country, as well as a school identification card and e-mail address? “The word went out in the Irish community all across the country that there was this attorney at the Yale Law School who had found a loophole in the immigration laws and could get you a green card quickly,” said Inspector Timothy Reardon of the New Haven State’s Attorney’s Office.

KJ