Glenview Lawyer Guilty After Telling Tales of Rape, Murder on U.S. Asylum Papers

A Glenview lawyer was convicted Monday in connection with giving federal immigration officials false information so his foreign national clients could find asylum in the country, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Illinois said in a press release.

Robert DeKelaita, 53, was found guilty on the following charges:

• conspiracy to commit asylum fraud
• procuring perjury during asylum interviews
• two counts of knowingly offering false statements in an asylum application

DeKelaita could face up to 35 years in prison when he's sentenced Aug. 3.

Prosecutors accused DeKelaita of taking money from his clients in exchange for handing over false documents to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Citizenship and Immigration Service division. In many cases, the statements in those documents wrongly claimed DeKelaita's clients were persecuted by Middle Eastern religious extremists. Some of the stories the lawyer would concoct, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office, included instances of rape, murder, torture, kidnappings, bombings and other forms of oppression.

Those distorted and exaggerated characterizations then were used so his clients would receive asylum from the United States. The federal government offers asylum to immigrants who can show they were persecuted for religious, racial, political and ethnic reasons, the U.S. Attorneys Office said.

DeKelaita, whose Morton Grove-based R.W. DeKelaita & Associates firm specializes in immigration law, submitted these false asylum applications between 2001 and 2011, according to prosecutors. These applications resulted in several of DeKelaita's clients being granted asylum and eventual U.S. residency and citizenship, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.

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