Amnesty Consultant Faces Criminal Counts and a D.A.’s Lawsuit

The former president and chief executive officer of Famous Amos Chocolate Chip Cookie Corp. was charged Thursday with 63 criminal business practices in the operation of an amnesty consulting firm.

A complaint filed by the Los Angeles city attorney’s office charges that Sidney Ross, 44, of Hollywood failed to provide clients of his El Norte and Immigration Paralegal Services with written contracts, made false statements while acting as an immigration consultant and practiced law without a license.

Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner also moved against El Norte and Ross on Thursday by filing a civil lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court that seeks an injunction barring the company from continuing any illegal activities and asking for $2,500 in fines for each claim by any company employee that can proved to be untrue or misleading.

$900 Per Couple

El Norte, which has hundreds of customers, charged $500 per person or $900 per couple seeking assistance with their amnesty applications under the federal immigration law, said Deputy City Atty. Ellen Pais.

El Norte clients sometimes arranged to pay in installments, the prosecutor said. But El Norte employees allegedly did not tell the clients that their amnesty applications would not be filed with the federal government until El Norte’s fees were fully paid.

“Some of these people’s payment plans would put them past the May 4, 1988, deadline and therefore (make them) ineligible for amnesty,” Pais said. The district attorney’s lawsuit charged that El Norte did not tell clients that there would be “considerable additional costs” above the basic fees.

“They’re a very sloppy business,” Pais said of El Norte, which is located at 1543 W. Olympic Blvd. “Some people are getting their amnesty through El Norte. It’s not that they are a fraud. It’s just that their interest is more in making money than in helping people get amnesty.”

Albert Coombes, an attorney for El Norte, disputed that.

Ross has been “in high-echelon management for a long time and is not the kind of man who would run a sloppy organization,” Coombes said. “El Norte has probably achieved more amnesty successes . . . than any organization in California.”

Coombes said he thought the city attorney’s office had filed charges prematurely.

“How can she say that something is not done (an application is not filed) when it doesn’t have to be done until May, 1988?” he asked. “Further, El Norte does employ the services of an attorney (me) who looks over the cases. . . . At no time did Mr. Ross or any on his staff represent to anyone that they are attorneys.”

Arraignment Set

Ross is to be arraigned in Los Angeles Municipal Court Jan. 14. Maximum penalty for each count is six months in jail.

City Atty. James K. Hahn said in a prepared statement that his office has had complaints about other immigration consultants who are not turning over amnesty applications promptly to the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

“If someone has gone to a consultant or lawyer and hasn’t heard from the INS within two weeks after the filing of their amnesty application, they should begin asking why,” Hahn said.