San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu introduced Thursday that authorized action is staying taken versus an “immigration consulting business enterprise” for allegedly charging immigrants for fraudulent authorized services it was not permitted to deliver.

The motion to enforce an injunction was submitted Monday and would prohibit Leonard Lacayo and Lacayo & Associates from offering immigration companies.

Lacayo is accused of falsely representing himself as a attorney and scamming immigrants into “into shelling out for sham legal expert services and placing several at possibility of dropping their lawful legal rights,” the city attorney’s workplace stated.

Lacayo & Associates has been in business enterprise in San Francisco given that 1986. Lacayo is reported to be a notary community but is not licensed to exercise legislation or registered as an immigration expert.

In 2017, the metropolis attorney’s business submitted an injunction prohibiting Lacayo & Associates from giving immigration-connected expert services and ordering Lacayo to shell out restitution and civil penalties.

“Leo Lacayo has demonstrated he has zero regard for the law or the immigrant communities he purports to serve. For decades, he has profited off of susceptible immigrants, getting their revenue though placing them at hazard,” Chiu mentioned. “In spite of becoming barred from supplying immigration products and services, Lacayo has conveniently pretended that our injunction from him does not exist. We are in search of to put a quit to this unlawful conduct and defend immigrant communities from this scam artist.”

Chiu accused Lacayo of providing expert services he was not competent to give and often failing to offer a assistance to customers. The city attorney also said that the businessman has “tricked” hundreds of immigrants into paying him to handle their immigration concerns.

Lacayo denies any of the accusations, including that he only will work as a notary and with tax preparing. He claimed that a law firm in the similar setting up does function with immigrants.

Following the injunction, the organization has ongoing to operate, with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Companies reporting that over 400 immigration applications and petitions have been filed with the business’s deal with soon after Lacayo & Associates experienced…