Newark Company CEO Pleads Guilty

A British citizen who ran a small technology company in Newark has pleaded guilty in federal court in Oakland to conspiring to commit visa fraud by submitting false visa applications for supposed high-tech workers.

Madhu Santhanam, 41, of Union City, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers on Wednesday to one count of conspiracy to commit visa fraud. He will be sentenced by Gonzalez Rogers on May 27 and could face up to five years in prison.

U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag said that as part of the plea agreement, Santhanam also agreed to forfeit $400,000 in his profit from the scheme.

Santhanam operated a business software and technical support company called MAAN Systems Inc. in Newark.

Haag said that during the guilty plea, Santhanam admitted to filing at least 25 fraudulent petitions to U.S. Department of Homeland Security between 2009 and 2013 for work visas for alleged specialty employees.

The applications were submitted under a program in which employers can seek work visas for highly skilled foreign computer programmers, scientists and engineers.

An employer must certify that the worker has a specific job offer and that the position cannot be filled with a U.S. citizen. The visas are known as H-1B visas.

According to the charges filed against Santhanam, 10 of the applications were for workers for the job of applications manager at Santhanam’s company.

Other applications were for consulting jobs with Western Digital and Walmart and included forged purchase orders and consulting agreements from those companies, according to court filings.

Santhanam was arrested in November 2013 and has been free on bond since then, Haag said. Santhanam is alleged in the charges to have conspired with other people in the scheme, but the co-conspirators are not identified.

--Bay City News