NORTH HOLLYWOOD : Guilty Plea Entered in Job Fraud Case

A 50-year-old North Hollywood woman pleaded guilty Tuesday to wire fraud charges in connection with a nationwide scam that bilked thousands of overseas job seekers of more than $1.4 million, the U.S. attorney’s office said.

Ruby Jean Feland Birch entered her plea in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney’s office, said.

Birch is one of four charged in a scheme to defraud customers of Transworld Agency, an overseas employment agency, Special Assistant U.S. Atty. Steven Jay Katzman said in a prepared statement.

The agency advertised overseas job opportunities in newspapers around the country from September, 1991, to March of this year. More than 2,000 clients paid advance application fees of up to $1,595 and were told the fees would be refunded if the agency failed to find them a job within six months, Katzman said.

The agency, however, failed to find jobs for any of the customers or to refund the fees, he said.

Birch is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 14 by U.S. Dist. Judge David Kenyon, Katzman said. Birch faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Still at large is the alleged leader of the scheme, Michael Bruce Marks, who has been charged with organizing the scheme while in prison at Lompoc on a previous conviction of wire fraud and managing the agency upon his release from prison, Katzman said.