Edison man charged with immigration fraud
Man accused of creating fake jobs to get visas, green cards for immigrants
BY CHRIS GAETANO Staff Writer

EDISON - A township man has been arrested on charges of conspiracy to commit immigration fraud for allegedly using his computer consulting company to provide work visas and green cards for immigrants who did not in fact do any work for his company. Also arrested were six of his alleged clients.

Nilesh Dasondi, of Hana Road in Edison, was arrested by federal authorities on June 10 at his home and was detained until his bail hearing on June 12 for allegedly lying to pretrial service officers.

Michael Drewniak, public affairs officer with the U.S. Attorney's Office in New Jersey, said U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael A. Shipp set bail at $800,000, secured by equity in three properties Dasondi owns, including his primary residence, and was ordered under house confinement with electronic monitoring.

Reporters from Greater Media Newspapers were unsuccessful in their attempts to contact Dasondi.

The government has since seized four bank accounts, three in the name of Dasondi's company, Cygate Software and Consulting Inc., and one in the name of another company he controlled.

According to the criminal complaint filed against Dasondi and his clients, Dasondi submitted false and fraudulent paperwork to the U.S. government in order to obtain H-1B visas and green cards based on supposed employment with Cygate. In exchange, the clients, named in the complaint as Kishor Parikh, Devang Patel, Vimal Patel, Hetal Shah, Chetan Trivdei and Ajit Vyas, would give Dasondi monthly payments that eventually added up to tens of thousands of dollars each. Dasondi acted on behalf of the six clients at different times between 2002 and 2007. All told, Dasondi is accused of having collected a total of $503,000 from the six people.

After returning a portion of the money in the form of paychecks from Cygate, paying state and federal taxes and, for some, paying for health insurance, Dasondi was left with $349,000 for what the criminal complaint says was his own personal enrichment.

The criminal complaint also says that notations written on the checks and money orders submitted to Dasondi included notes such as "pay stubs + HI + H1-visa," "payroll," "paychecks + health insurance," "GC," and "for Green Card + Health Insurance."

Dasondi was known to be involved with township issues, being a second alternate member of the Zoning Board as well as being on the Edison Festival Association, which coordinates parades and fairs. He also ran for council in 2007, challenging both the incumbents and the Choi slate in the most recent Democratic primary, with running mates Bill Stephens, Anthony Russomanno and Richard Westover. After his defeat, he became a supporter of changing the township's system of council representation from an at-large to a wards system.

However, in previous years Dasondi had been a Choi supporter, according to Election Law Enforcement Commission (ELEC) reports, having given $500 to Choi's campaign on Oct. 26, 2005, $1,000 on June 30, 2006, and $2,600 on Dec. 5, 2006.

Russomanno said that Dasondi should have his day in court, noting that people are innocent before proven guilty.

"What I know of Nilesh, he's a good, young man. That's all I'll say," said Russomanno.