Opinion ID: 4563581
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Jabateh is Indicted for Fraud

Text: Although the wheels of justice sometimes turn slowly, they do not turn without purpose. And so, nearly two decades after his arrival, a grand jury indicted Jabateh for the fraud in his immigration documents in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1546(a) (Counts One and Two) and perjury in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1621 (Counts Three and Four).8 But the long delay came with a cost: all four counts related to Jabateh’s oral statements during the 2011 Interview. Recall that Jabateh filed his Form I-485 application for permanent residency in 2001, so the statute of limitations for any misconduct related to that filing had long passed by the time of Jabateh’s indictment in 2016. See 18 U.S.C. § 3282 (five-year statute of limitations); 18 U.S.C. § 3291 (ten-year statute of limitations for certain immigration offenses). That left the Government with only Jabateh’s oral responses in the 2011 Interview affirming his 8 The Government explained that Jabateh was not indicted until 2016 because “[t]he information that proved the misconduct here did not come to the Government’s attention until well after the 2011” Interview. (Oral Arg. Tr. at 50.) 11 answer of “no” to the questions related to genocide and prior misrepresentations during his immigration applications.