Former UN translator gets year for visa fraud

By DAVID B. CARUSO – 4 days ago
NEW YORK (AP) — A United Nations translator was sentenced to a year in prison for using U.N. stationery and fraudulent documents to smuggle people into the United States from Uzbekistan.
Vyacheslav Manokhin, a Russian national who had been living in Greenwich, Conn., pleaded guilty in March to one count of conspiring to obtain visas by means of false statements.
The visas were supposed to be for foreigners attending U.N. conferences in the U.S., but either the gatherings never took place or the visa holders didn't attend them, prosecutors said. Manokhin forged invitations to the conferences from a nonexistent U.N. official.
He apologized at his sentencing Thursday, though he said he didn't initially think what he did was illegal.
"I learned my lesson. I paid a huge price for this," he said.
Prosecutors said Manokhin was a key accomplice in the scheme hatched by a fellow translator, Vladimir Derevianko, who worked for a Manhattan lawyer.
One of the Uzbek travelers paid $15,000 for the pair's help getting the travel papers.
Manokhin has already spent 9 1/2 months in prison, so he is likely to remain for only another two months. Manokhin's attorney, James Roth, said he and his family are likely to be deported to Russia upon his release.
Derevianko, a former KGB informant who was granted political asylum in the U.S. in 2004 after running afoul of organized crime figures and government officials in Ukraine, also pleaded guilty and was sentenced earlier this month to the nine months he had served following his arrest.