A federal judge in Florida has determined that two Navy veterans, partly responsible for a bizarre wedding fraud scheme, won’t have to spend any more time behind bars.
Raymond Zumba and Brinio Urena, both 28, from Jacksonville, were charged with a wedding-fraud scheme that allegedly brought Chinese immigrants to the U.S. illegally to live on military bases, in a scam that saw 15 other people convicted, according to First Coast News.
Zumba had already been in jail since February 2025 while detectives worked on the case that involved 14 fraudulent marriages, along with a bribery charge to obtain false identity cards through a naval air station personnel office in Jacksonville.
Speaking to Senior U.S. District Judge Harvey Schlesinger, Zumba expressed regret, saying he was “truly ashamed” of his fraudulent scheme.
“I just truly want to go back to my family and back to college,” he told Schlesinger.
On March 25, the judge sentenced Zumba, a former petty officer, to time served, along with three years of supervision in his home state of New York.
Ring Spanned Almost 20 People
Based on a story first reported in the Florida Times-Union, Zumba felt he needed accomplices to run his wedding fraud ring, and brought in Urena, a Navy recruiter, along with several others.
Also on March 25, Urena was sentenced to probation, including four months of home confinement. Zumba, however, has spent the past 14 months free while the case was being investigated.
According to U.S. Attorney David Mesrobian, including Urena and Zumba, eight military members were involved in the fraudulent marriage scheme, with the group trying to recruit at least 20 people in all.
But, once arrested, both Zumba and Urena cooperated with authorities in identifying others involved in the fraud ring, prompting Mesrobian to file paperwork with the court calling for leniency in their sentencing due to “substantial assistance.”
“There is no espionage question at their level?” Schlesinger asked the prosecutor.
“Not at their level,” Mesrobian replied.
Threat to National Security?
Since the case broke, concern over international spying has hung in the thick Florida air.
In February, Middle District of Florida U.S. Attorney Gregory Kehoe said when the indictments of 11 defendants were unsealed, the chances of undocumented immigrants from China moving through military bases with fake IDs, “jeopardizes the safety and security of our military facilities,” although “what they’re going to do with that information is unknown.”
However, Waffa Hanania, Zumba’s public defender, wrote to Judge Schlesinger in a sentencing memo that the Navy veteran was “never aware of any ulterior purpose for getting the cards other than to further document the spouses involved in the scheme and to get them access for on-base shopping. No one ever discussed any other purpose. ...to our knowledge, there was not any incursion that led to detrimental effects on the country or its security. While Mr. Zumba may have been naive, he was not complicit in any such attempts.”
Rather than being motivated by espionage, Mesrobian emphasized that Zumba and his cohorts appeared to be incentivized by big-time profits from a plan to pay American citizens to agree to marry Chinese immigrants, hoping for permanent citizen status or to obtain green cards.
U.S. citizens accepting the offer “were willing to commit a felony for $35,000,” Mesrobian said.
Based on the investigation, $35,000 was the amount promised in installments to Americans looking to take part in the fraudulent marriages, to be delivered at the time of the nuptials, green card delivery, and a subsequent divorce, freeing the Chinese immigrant to embark on their own life in the U.S.
Mesrobian claimed that some of the Chinese immigrants were already in the U.S. on tourist or student visas, choosing to join the ring after their visas had expired several months before.
Along with the marriage fraud conspiracy charges, Zumba was also charged with bribery of a public official, for which he pleaded guilty. That charge was considered in his sentencing, but not for Urena.
