Critics: INS had warning about agent

By all accounts, the raid was a success. Not only did they arrest dozens of employees, but an Asian woman who worked there agreed to become an informant. Robert Schofield, then a senior investigator in the immigration service, was along on the raid.

Within a matter of days, sources said, the Asian informant became Schofield’s constant companion.

The “inappropriate relationship,” with the Asian woman, court documents allege, “impeded the ... investigation.”

Schofield, now 57, is in jail, awaiting trial on charges that he allegedly sold phony visas and citizenships to immigrants in exchange for some $8.1 million in bribes. Schofield’s lawyers refused comment.

But critics like Michael Maxwell, recently a senior member of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service, claim that even if the charges against Schofield are untrue, the trial will offer a peek at an immigration system rife with waste, fraud and abuse, even after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks caused widespread tightening.

Schofield’s indictment alleges that he had been accused of corruption for a full decade before his summer 2005 arrest. After they discovered that Schofield was having an affair with the informant, authorities told Schofield to break it off, according to court papers and former immigration executive Jim Goldman.

Goldman supervised Schofield at the time of the brothel raid.

Shortly after the warning, Schofield took a leave of absence and went to Florida, a law enforcement source said. Around the same time, the woman disappeared, law enforcement sources said.

Authorities feared she had fled the country. But then they received a tip that the woman was aboard a flight to the D.C. area, a law enforcement source said.

The woman arrived on the flight as scheduled. She wasn’t alone: She came off the plane, arm in arm with Schofield, law enforcement sources said.

Schofield was demoted to the Washington field office, where he handled applications for visas and citizenships.

In 1995, Schofield was sent to Guam on a 50-day detail, a law enforcement source said.

But after 90 days there, he disappeared. He was tracked to Bangkok after government-issued American Express and Diners Club credit cards were used to make $36,000 in charges, according to court records and law enforcement sources.

Goldman said he spent an entire night on the telephone talking to Schofield in Bangkok, coaxing him to come back.

It’s not clear whether Schofield was ever disciplined for the disappearance. What saved Schofield from being fired, Goldman and others told The Examiner, was his encyclopedic knowledge of the U.S. immigration system.

He became the agent of choice for difficult problems and eventually rose to supervisor, Goldman and others said. As a supervisor, he was given the power to hear immigrants’ appeals, to reverse lower officials’ decisions and to award citizenship or visas. His 2005 arrest occurred only after a fluke incident, court records show.

In August 2005, a Filipino woman came through customs at San Francisco International Airport carrying a fake green card, court records state.

When questioned, the woman divulged Schofield’s cell phone and his home address, court records state. Authorities confirmed that her card bore the official stamp that Schofield used in his office.

More than 200 other immigrants obtained phony papers through Schofield, authorities allege.

Authorities estimate that the operation netted $8.1 million, or about $40,000 per immigrant, and Schofield deposited the money in numerous bank accounts in Hong Kong, Thailand and the Philippines, they say.

smccabe@dcexaminer.com

bmyers@dcexaminer.com