Ex-FBI trainee nets 1-year term in marriage fraud case

NORFOLK

A former FBI trainee and Navy sailor was sentenced Tuesday to one year in federal prison after admitting she arranged a phony marriage to get quick citizenship.

Yue H. Cheng, 27, apologized to the court and the country for her behavior. She previously pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to naturalization fraud, making false statements and defrauding the Navy by accepting additional housing allowance as a married person.

"I'm very sorry for what I did, especially to the Navy and the United States," she told U.S. District Judge Henry Coke Morgan Jr. "I accept full responsibility for what I did."

Morgan also stripped Cheng of her citizenship. She told the court she will return to China with her fiance when she is deported after serving her prison term. She has already served five months in a local jail.

Cheng came to the United States from China in 1999 on a student visa. She married a California man two years later and then joined the Navy.

After serving three years, part of which was served at Oceana Naval Air Station, she joined the FBI in 2006 as a trainee at the bureau's Quantico academy. But during a polygraph test, agents became suspicious about her marriage. She later admitted it was a fraud, and the bureau dismissed her.

In September 2004, Cheng became a naturalized U.S. citizen, based on both her marriage and her Navy service. Because of her marriage, she received about twice the housing allowance that a single person would get. The FBI says she was overpaid by about $25,000. The judge ordered her to repay the money.

Her husband, James Hartford of California, has said the marriage was legitimate. He has not been charged.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph E. DePadilla said marriage fraud has become an "epidemic" nationwide and continues to be a growing problem in the region.

"I do believe this is the most serious marriage fraud case I have handled, and I've handled about 30," he told the judge.

As a student, Cheng graduated magna cum laude from California State University and was a graduate student at the College of William and Mary at the time of her arrest.

Instead of rushing to reach what she called the "sweet American dream," she said she "should have waited in line like everyone else."

Tim McGlone, (757) 446-2343, tim.mcglone@pilotonline.com