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An American woman living in Massachusetts has been accused by the Department of Justice of arranging sham marriages to help her clients seek green cards and U.S. citizenship.
Jennifer Gonzalez, a U.S. citizen, collected up to $40,000 per marriage and arranged as many as 20 per year over the last decade, according to Leah Foley, the U.S. attorney for the Massachusetts District.
Gonzalez’s female employees, who were also charged, were the ones marrying the men looking to get legal status in the U.S., authorities said.
“This conspiracy netted her $6 million during the course of the alleged scam,” Foley said during a press conference Wednesday at the Moakley Federal Courthouse in Boston. “She bragged that she invested her ill gotten proceeds in businesses and property in the Dominican Republic, which she repeatedly referred to as ‘my country.'”
U.S. Attorney Leah Foley announces the the arrest of six people for allegedly arranging sham marriages over the past decade that netted them millions of dollars during a news conference on Oct. 21, 2025, in Boston. (AP Photo/Michael Casey)
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It appears Gonzalez spilled the details of the scheme to a witness cooperating with federal law enforcement. Foley said Gonzalez believed this individual was an illegal immigrant.
Gonzalez, 43, told the witness, who was recording the interaction, that Massachusetts was “so special” because it is a sanctuary state where “illegal aliens get a lot of help as an immigrant.”
Gonzalez also allegedly said her goal was to give all her children pieces of land in the Dominican Republic they could later own.
“Miss Gonzalez got rich off selling the American dream, all the while investing her money in another country,” Foley said.
Gonzalez told the witness she stopped holding phony marriages at the end of 2024 because President Donald Trump was returning to office, before shutting down the scheme entirely in 2025 because immigration enforcement had become “a little harsh,” according to Foley.
Photos provided by the Department of Justice show Jessica Tavares, an alleged co-conspirator, marrying an illegal immigrant from Brazil in May 2018. (Department of Justice)
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Gonzalez was described by prosecutors as the “ringleader” of the operation, though there were other alleged co-conspirators.
Amara Pugh, Gonzalez’s 31-year-old secretary — along with Jessica Tavares, 31; Erica Daniels, 29; and Jaylin Hill, 26 — were allegedly paid to marry Gonzalez’s clients. Gonzalez herself also allegedly entered into a sham marriage with an illegal immigrant.
Photographs of at least two marriage ceremonies were included in court records shared by the Justice Department.
In most cases, they would stay married to the illegal immigrants for years, get divorced, then get married to other illegal immigrants as early as a month after their divorces, officials added.
A photo provided by the Department of Justice shows Erica Daniels, another alleged co-conspirator, marrying an illegal immigrant from Brazil in August 2024. (Department of Justice)
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Foley told reporters that another component of the alleged fraud involved Gonzalez applying for and receiving SNAP benefits from 2019 through 2026. She received more than $124,000 from the SNAP program over that time, according to prosecutors.
“She did not list her income from her sham marriage business and did not list anyone else in her household, not the illegal alien she married and not the father of her children, who she referred to as her husband,” Foley said.
Gonzalez, Pugh, Tavares and two other conspirators were arrested Wednesday morning, the Justice Department said. Hill is already in state prison for a firearms offense.