SACRAMENTO — A Tracy man was convicted Tuesday in federal court on 21 counts of visa fraud and two counts of aggravated identity theft. He faces up to 12 years in prison and fines totaling $500,000 when he is sentenced later this year, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Abhijit Prasad, 52, was indicted in December 2016. Evidence presented at his trial in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California showed that Prasad filed 19 petitions for H-1B nonimmigrant visas containing false statements pertaining to work projects at locations throughout the state, including Cisco Systems.

Cisco had no expectation that the foreign workers who were the beneficiaries of the visa petitions actually would work at Cisco, according to the evidence. It also was shown that Prasad “knowingly submitted forged Cisco documents to United States Citizenship and Immigration Services in support of his claims that the beneficiaries would work at Cisco,” according to an ICE statement.

Trial evidence also showed Prasad fraudulently used the digital signature of a Cisco employee — who was not authorized to sign Cisco employment documents — to create a document that would leave the impression that two of the H-1B workers had an existing work project at Cisco, ICE reported.

Prasad is scheduled for sentencing Oct. 16 by U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer. He faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for the visa fraud convictions and a two-year mandatory prison sentence and a $250,000 fine for the aggravated identity theft counts. The actual sentence, however, will be determined at the discretion of the court after consideration of any applicable statutory factors and the Federal Sentencing Guidelines.

“Homeland Security Investigations remains laser focused to conduct document and benefit fraud investigations, arresting and bringing to justice individuals, like Prasad, who seek to undermine and abuse the laws of the United States,” said Tatum King, special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations for San Francisco and Northern California. “These types of fraudulent activities pose a severe threat to national security and public safety as they create vulnerabilities for terrorists and other criminals to exploit.

“HSI and our law enforcement partners will not tolerate such criminal activities and will hold violators accountable to the fullest extent of the law.”

Document fraud, also known as identity fraud, is the manufacturing, counterfeiting, alteration, sale, and/or use of identity documents and other fraudulent documents to circumvent immigration laws or for other criminal activity. Identity fraud in some cases also involves identity theft, a crime in which an imposter takes on the identity of a real person whether living or deceased.

Contact reporter Joe Goldeen at (209) 546-8278 or jgoldeen@recordnet.com. Follow him on Twitter @JoeGoldeen.