23-7168 (L)
United States v. Greenberg


                                               In the
                      United States Court of Appeals
                                  For the Second Circuit

                                        August Term, 2024

                (Argued: January 8, 2025              Decided: February 3, 2025)

                             Docket Nos. 23-7168 (L), 23-7249 (Con)



                                   UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

                                               Appellee,

                                                 –v.–

JULIA GREENBERG, AKA SEALED DEFENDANT 3, ULADZIMIR DANSKOI, AKA SEALED
                             DEFENDANT 2,

                                              Defendants-Appellants,

YURY MOSHA, AKA SEALED DEFENDANT 1, ALEKSEI KMIT, AKA SEALED
DEFENDANT 4, TYMUR SHCHERBYNA, AKA SEALED DEFENDANT 5, KATERYNA
LYSYUCHENKO,

                                                Defendants. *




          Before:        WALKER, ROBINSON, and MERRIAM, Circuit Judges.



*   The Clerk’s office is directed to amend the caption as reflected above.
       Defendants-Appellants Julia Greenberg and Uladzimir Danskoi
appeal from criminal judgments entered in the United States District Court
for the Southern District of New York (Oetken, J.) convicting them of a single
count of conspiracy to commit immigration fraud. Defendants raise several
challenges to the convictions, most of which are addressed in a summary
order issued contemporaneously with this opinion.

       In this opinion, we address only Defendant Greenberg’s challenges to
the legal sufficiency of one of the charged objects of the conspiracy—
namely, committing immigration fraud by obtaining certain immigration
documents knowing them to be “forged, counterfeited, altered, or falsely
made, or to have been procured by means of any false claim or statement,
or to have been otherwise procured by fraud or unlawfully obtained,” in
violation of 

(a) para. 1 (“Paragraph 1”). Greenberg argues
that Paragraph 1 does not reach the possession of authentic documents that
one knows to have been procured by a false claim or statement but is instead
limited to counterfeit documents.

       We conclude that the plain language of Paragraph 1 applies to the
possession of authentic documents known to have been procured by means
of a false claim. Through the summary order and this opinion, we thus
AFFIRM the district court’s judgments.



                         DAVID R. FELTON (Jonathan E. Rebold, Jacob R.
                         Fiddelman, on the brief), Assistant United States
                         Attorneys, for Damian Williams, United States
                         Attorney for the Southern District of New York,
                         New York, NY, for Appellee.

                         BEAU B. BRINDLEY, The Law Offices of Beau B.
                         Brindley, Chicago, IL, for Appellant Greenberg.

                         JAMES M. BRANDEN, Law Office of James M.
                         Branden, Staten Island, NY, for Appellant Danskoi.



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PER CURIAM:


      Defendants-Appellants Julia Greenberg and Uladzimir Danskoi appeal

criminal judgments entered in the United States District Court for the Southern

District of New York (Oetken, J.). For the reasons set forth below and in a

summary order issued contemporaneously with this opinion, we AFFIRM the

judgments.


                                BACKGROUND

      Defendants-Appellants Julia Greenberg and Uladzimir Danskoi were

convicted of a single count of conspiracy to commit immigration fraud. Danskoi

was a partner at Russian America, an immigration services firm in New York that

purported to provide translation and other services for individuals in immigration

proceedings. The government presented evidence that Danskoi and other charged

conspirators associated with Russian America steered clients into fraudulently

applying for asylum based on fabricated stories, and that Greenberg, an

immigration attorney, then represented those individuals in immigration

proceedings and further bolstered their applications, despite knowing that they

were fictitious. Both Defendants were convicted pursuant to a general verdict

following a two-week jury trial in December 2022.



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      Most of Defendants’ challenges to the convictions are addressed in a

summary order issued contemporaneously with this opinion. This opinion deals

solely with Greenberg’s challenge to whether the government met its burden to

prove the second alleged object of the conspiracy—namely, committing

immigration fraud by obtaining certain immigration documents knowing them to

be “forged, counterfeited, altered, or falsely made, or to have been procured by

means of any false claim or statement, or to have been otherwise procured by fraud

or unlawfully obtained,” in violation of 

(a) para. 1 (“Paragraph 1”).

      As relevant to this opinion, the government introduced evidence that

Greenberg coached CS-1 and CS-3, two government informants who were posing

as applicants for asylum based on fabricated stories, in their asylum proceedings

after Russian America submitted the applicants’ written applications.            The

government’s theory at trial was that Defendants’ conspiracy to secure I-94 forms,

documenting grants of asylum, was tantamount to a conspiracy to violate

Paragraph 1. Greenberg contends that as a matter of law, Paragraph 1 does not

apply to that conduct.


                                  DISCUSSION

      Paragraph 1 punishes:




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             Whoever knowingly forges, counterfeits, alters, or falsely
             makes any immigrant or nonimmigrant visa, permit,
             border crossing card, alien registration receipt card, or
             other document prescribed by statute or regulation for
             entry into or as evidence of authorized stay or
             employment in the United States, or utters, uses,
             attempts to use, possesses, obtains, accepts, or receives
             any such visa, permit, border crossing card, alien
             registration receipt card, or other document prescribed
             by statute or regulation for entry into or as evidence of
             authorized stay or employment in the United States,
             knowing it to be forged, counterfeited, altered, or falsely
             made, or to have been procured by means of any false
             claim or statement, or to have been otherwise procured
             by fraud or unlawfully obtained . . . .

(a).

      Greenberg argues that this provision does not reach possession of any

authentic immigration documents – no matter how they were procured – but

rather punishes only counterfeiting and possession of counterfeit documents. She

contends that the triggering requirement of Paragraph 1 is that the documents in

question be forged, counterfeited, altered, or falsely made, and that the reference

to obtaining, possessing or using “any such” documents refers only to documents

that were forged, counterfeited, altered, or falsely made. See Greenberg Br. at 28.

We disagree.

      Paragraph 1 reaches both “knowingly forg[ing], counterfeit[ing], alter[ing],

or falsely mak[ing]” any of the specifically listed immigration-related documents


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in the statute, and receiving, possessing, or using “any such [document] . . .

knowing it to be forged, counterfeited, altered, or falsely made, or to have been

procured by means of any false claim or statement, or to have been otherwise procured by

fraud or unlawfully obtained.” 

(a) para. 1 (emphasis added). We

read “any such” document as referencing the specific list of immigration-related

documents covered by the statute, not the means of falsifying those documents.

      It is a “cardinal principle of interpretation that courts must give effect, if

possible, to every clause and word of a statute.” Liu v. Sec. & Exch. Comm’n, 

 (2020) (citation omitted). “[I]f it can be prevented,” we construe statutes

such that “no clause, sentence, or word shall be superfluous, void, or

insignificant.” El Omari v. Int'l Crim. Police Org., 

 (2d Cir. 2022)

(citation omitted). Greenberg’s construction would effectively require the Court

to ignore the statute’s specific reference to receipt, possession, or use of documents

known “to have been otherwise procured by fraud or unlawfully obtained.” That

statutory clause expressly encompasses fraudulent acquisition of immigration

documents through means other than forgery and counterfeiting. Greenberg’s

reading would render it inoperative. This reinforces our conclusion that the plain

language of Paragraph 1 proscribes the receipt or possession of an authentic

document that one knows to have been procured by a false claim or statement.


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      Every court to have considered this provision has reached the same

conclusion. See, e.g., United States v. Kouevi, 

 (3d Cir. 2012)

(holding that the plain language of Paragraph 1 “prohibits the possession and use

of authentic immigration documents obtained by fraud”); United States v. Krstic,

 (9th Cir. 2009) (concluding, based on statutory history and

“common sense,” that Paragraph 1 “prohibits possessing an otherwise authentic

document that one knows has been procured by means of a false claim or

statement”).

      Greenberg relies primarily on United States v. Campos-Serrano, 

(1971), for the proposition that Paragraph 1 pertains only to “counterfeiting,”

whereas other paragraphs of § 1546(a) address fraud in the acquisition of authentic

immigration documents, id. at 301 n.13. We agree with the district court that

“Campos-Serrano cannot support the weight Greenberg places upon it.” United

States v. Greenberg, No. 1:21-cr-00092, 

, at *18 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 9,

2022) (Nathan, J.) (alterations accepted). In Campos-Serrano, the Court considered

whether an “alien registration receipt card” was a document required for “entry

into . . . the United States” such that § 1546(a) para. 1 proscribed possession of a

counterfeit version of it. 

. The Court did not address whether




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Paragraph 1 prohibited possession of an otherwise authentic document obtained

through a false claim.

      And, contrary to Greenberg’s argument, reading Paragraph 1 to reach both

authentic and inauthentic documents does not render Paragraph 4 of § 1546(a)

superfluous. Paragraph 4 punishes “knowingly mak[ing] under oath . . . any false

statement with respect to a material fact” in an immigration application. 

(a) para. 4.       Paragraph 4 does not cover the possession or receipt of

fraudulently obtained documents, which is addressed only in Paragraph 1.

      In sum, based on the plain text of the statute, we conclude that Paragraph 1

unambiguously prohibits the knowing acquisition, possession, or use of authentic

immigration documents obtained by fraud or false statement and thus the rule of

lenity doesn’t apply. See United States v. DiCristina, 

 (2d Cir. 2013)

(“[T]he rule of lenity only applies if, after considering text, structure, history, and

purpose, there remains a grievous ambiguity or uncertainty in the statute.”

(citation omitted)).

      Greenberg does not otherwise challenge the factual sufficiency of the

government’s evidence on this reading of the statute. Accordingly, the district

court’s inclusion of violating Paragraph 1 as one object of the charged conspiracy

was not error and provides no basis to overturn Greenberg’s conviction.


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                                CONCLUSION

     For these reasons and for the reasons set forth in the separately issued

summary order, we AFFIRM.




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