A U.S. Navy officer has been convicted of accepting bribes in exchange for providing fraudulent visa paperwork, enabling unknown Afghan nationals to enter the United States without proper authorization.
Cmdr. Jeremy Pittman, 53, of the Navy’s Civil Engineer Corps, was found guilty by a federal jury of issuing false letters of recommendation for over 20 Afghans seeking to apply for Special Immigrant Visas (SIV) through the State Department. This program was designed to offer limited-entry opportunities for Afghan collaborators to escape Taliban retribution and immigrate to the United States.
According to a report by The Maritime Executive, Pittman received a flat fee of $500 per falsified visa document through a broker. Despite having never met the applicants, Pittman’s letters asserted that he had supervised them in their roles as translators for the U.S. military and vouched for their lack of security threat to the United States. Additionally, he falsified invoices to make it appear as though he was receiving legitimate “family support” payments from the broker.
“I just wish the money would keep coming. Ha. Maybe one day we will get a business started. It would be nice to pay off my debts,” Pittman wrote in a 2018 thank-you email to the broker.
The jury convicted Pittman of bribery and two related conspiracy charges. He faces a maximum possible sentence of 45 years in prison, with sentencing scheduled for October 21.
