Samuels said she had never filed a petition for an alien relative before, but that was false. She had filed a petition for her second husband from Peru in 1997.

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — A North Liberty woman has been sentenced to three months in a federal facility for lying in court on an immigration matter.

Tamie Marie Samuels, 46, was found guilty in May on one count of making a false statement in an immigration matter. Evidence at trial showed that Samuels had filed an immigration petition to help her fourth husband gain legal status to say in the U.S. She married him in Feburary 2015, two days after he arrived from Jamaica on a visitor visa.

In the petition, Samuels said she had never filed a petition for an alien relative before, but that was false. She had filed a petition for her second husband from Peru in 1997.

The investigation began in February 2015 when Homeland Security Investiagtions learned that Samuels had booked a flight and given her third husband’s passport to another person to use to illegally enter the U.S. from a Caribbean Island in 2014.