A Houston immigration attorney was arrested Tuesday and accused of defrauding people who had hired her to help them apply for U.S. visas. Authorities say her alleged scheme might have affected dozens of people.
Alla Karash Nowowiejski, 44, was charged with mail fraud and making false statements, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Texas.
According to a newly unsealed indictment, Nowowiejski is accused of accepting payment for legal services from two people and then not completing the work she was hired to do.
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According to the Justice Department, the clients hired Nowowiejski in 2024 to assist them with establishing or adjusting their work status and applying for work visas. But Nowowiejski never submitted the applications or only submitted them in part. She also gave the clients documents or reference numbers associated with other people's immigration cases to make them think immigration authorities were processing their applications, authorities allege.
The mail fraud and false-statements charges are both related to one part of Nowowiejski's alleged scheme. She's accused of causing the clients to submit unnecessary vaccination records to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and of lying about the agency requesting the records.
If convicted, Nowowiejski could face up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for mail fraud and up to five years and a $100,000 fine for the false-statements charge.
It's not clear from the indictment how much Nowowiejski was paid by the two clients. The victims aren't identified by name. Nowowiejski pleaded not guilty Wednesday before a federal magistrate judge and was released on bond.
The Office of Harris County Precinct 1 Constable Alan Rosen said it was his agency that initiated the case and that Nowowiejski victimized more than 100 people in a separate news release announcing her arrest.
"Immigrants are already facing so many challenges, and the last thing people need is to be manipulated by a lawyer deceiving them," Rosen said in the release. "We could not allow that to happen, so we stepped in, investigated, and prevented the defendant from preying on this community any further."
In 2023, Nowowiejski was sued by a Houston company, Audubon Engineering Operations, LLC, over allegations of negligence and legal malpractice. The lawsuit accused Nowowiejski of lying about the status of immigration paperwork she handled for at least five employees.
As with the federal charges, the lawsuit accused her of providing her clients with fabricated documents in an attempt to cover up her failure to do her work.
Audubon sought more than $250,000 in damages. Nowowiejski never responded to the lawsuit. A default judgment for more than $300,000 was entered against her in 2024.
Nowowiejski has been suspended from practicing law, according to the State Bar of Texas website. The website doesn't state when she was suspended, or for what reason.
Nowowiejski graduated from Texas Southern University in 2009 and began practicing law that same year. Her bar profile lists her as practicing under her own law firm, which was incorporated in 2019. Nowowiejski did not immediately return a message left at her firm's listed phone number.
Nowowiejski had no listed defense attorney as of Thursday. No future court dates have been set.
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This article originally published at Houston immigration attorney accused of defrauding clients with fake case documents.