Renato Camara is accused of entering 2 sham marriages.MOBILE, Alabama -- Renato Camara was facing deportation by an immigration judge who was skeptical about the legitimacy of his marriage to an American when he married a second U.S. woman, according to a federal criminal complaint.
The 37-year-old Brazilian man gave up his right to a preliminary hearing on Thursday.
Over the objection of prosecutors, U.S. Magistrate Judge Katherine “Kit” Nelson ordered that Camara be released from jail, but only after a telephone line is installed in his Baldwin County home so that authorities can keep track of the defendant with an electronic monitoring device.
Nelson sent marriage fraud charges against Camara to a grand jury, along with an unrelated marriage fraud case involving another foreign couple.
Camara’s court-appointed attorney, Cindy Powell, said after Thursday’s hearing that she could not comment on the allegations.
“The focus today was just to try to get him out,” she said.
According to an affidavit filed by a Homeland Security agent, the defendant came to the United States in 2005 on a tourist visa but stayed past its expiration. In 2007, Camara married an American named Dianne Rojas and later applied for a green card.
According to the affidavit, Citizenship and Immigration Services officials interviewed the couple separately in 2007 and noted several discrepancies in their answers. Rojas confessed that the union was a sham and said Camara offered her $6,000 to marry him, the affidavit alleges.
Authorities initiated deportation proceedings against Camara in October 2010 and scheduled a hearing in Orlando for September of this year.
But Camara in February married a Baldwin County woman named Angela Green, who has been charged with marriage fraud and has pleaded not guilty. Green admitted to investigators that marriage was fraudulent, telling them that Camara had paid her $600 so far of a promised sum of $8,000, according to the allegations.
Homeland Security Special Agent Randy Hoffman testified Thursday that Green told investigators that Camara moved into her home part-time, staying about 3 to 4 days a week. That is where he was when authorities arrested him earlier this week.
“He wanted to move in to substantiate the fraudulent marriage,” Hoffman said.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Adam Overstreet asked Nelson to keep Camara in jail on grounds that he is a risk to flee. He said the defendant is a “proven liar” who tried to fake his first marriage.
“Lo and behold, he enters into this second marriage through fraudulent means,” Overstreet said.
Powell noted that her client was aware of a federal investigation since August, but remained in Baldwin County. What’s more, she said, he is broke.
“I don’t think that this man has the means to go anywhere,” she said.
In the other case, authorities allege that a couple originally from the Czech Republic, Antonin Matusek, 33, and Katerina Ondrackova, 34 conspired with American friends to set up arranged marriages so they could stay in the country. They live together in Orange Beach.
Ondrackova married Kevin Walker in January 2007. They met to sign divorce papers in August of this year, 5 months after Ondrakova’s naturalization application was approved.
Matusek married Jessica Vogelsang in November 2009, and immigration officials approved his permanent residency application in September 2010.
A grand jury indicted Vogelsang on marriage fraud charges last month; Walker recently died.
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