SHERMAN OAKS, CA — A San Fernando Valley porn director and two Hungarian nationals were arrested Wednesday on charges they were running a “mail-order brides” scheme that tricked Hungarian women into emigrating to the U.S. only to find themselves indentured to a brothel in Sherman Oaks.David Crawford, 37, who uses the “nom de porn” David Lord, and two Hungarian women were accused of falsifying immigration documents and arranging sham marriages in order to keep women whose visas had expired in the country illegally.
Crawford is the owner of Primal Productions. He is charged with perjury along with his sham spouse, 35-year-old Agnes Jeges. Crawford resides in Reseda and Jeges resides separately in Van Nuys, according to court documents.
The federal charges allege Jeges worked for a Sherman Oaks-based brothel operated by 33-year-old Angela Csutai. Cstutai also has been charged in connection with the sham marriage scheme. She is alleged to have been involved with a similar scheme with another U.S. citizen, to whom she was “married.”
“No one should ever look upon immigration benefit fraud as a victimless crime,” Robert Schoch, special agent in charge of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Office of Investigations in Los Angeles, told the Los Angeles Daily News. “When people lie to obtain an immigration benefit, they not only cheat those who comply with the law and respect the system, but, as we believe occurred in this case, their lies and falsehoods are often designed to mask other types of criminal activity.”
The perjury charges facing all three defendants carry a maximum penalty of five years in federal prison. The additional charges of making false statements to ICE carry a maximum sentence of 10 years.
