RALPH Cucciniello, the bogus immigration attorney who promised numerous Irish undocumented a green card for an upfront fee of $5,000, pleaded guilty to several counts of larceny, one count of racketeering and three counts of impersonating an attorney in New Haven Superior Court on Thursday, January 24. Cucciniello, who falsely claimed to be an attorney working on a green card program in Yale Law School, pleaded guilty under the Alford doctrine - not admitting guilt but acknowledging that there is sufficient evidence to reach a conviction.Judge Richard Damiani ordered Cucciniello to pay $300,000 to his victims or face additional prison time. Damiani said he would consider sentencing Cucciniello to 20 years, suspended after 12, if he paid the money owed. Otherwise, he said the sentence would consist of 30 years prison time, suspended after 20. "It's an all or nothing situation," Damiani said. "The bottom line is, we are going to have restitution."Cucciniello fooled his victims into believing he had discovered a loophole in the immigration system and could get his "clients" a green card for a fee of $5,000. He held his meetings at Yale University, convincing the undocumented he was a faculty member. In reality, Cucciniello was only an unpaid research assistant to a Yale law professor, Steven Duke, who was representing Martin Taccetta, a well-known organized crime figure in New Jersey at the time, in a murder appeal. Duke provided Cucciniello with a key-card, a computer ID and a Yale e-mail address.Most of Cucciniello's victims were Irish, but others came from Italy, Britain, Ecuador and Eastern Europe according to prosecutors.Cucciniello, 56, was arrested on May 1 of last year on Bleecker Street in lower Manhattan while meeting with an Irish client. He was charged with grand larceny and scheme to defraud, was held overnight and let go the following day. Because the bogus attorney had met most of his clients in Connecticut the case was referred to the New Haven state attorney's office. He was rearrested on June 28 in Rhode Island and has been held in New Haven Correctional Facility ever since on a $3.5 million bail bond.Cucciniello, who was born in Patterson, New Jersey, has been arrested countless times over the years for similar frauds. He was charged in at least five different states including Washington, California, New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.Not only did Cucciniello promise undocumented Irish a green card within a year, he also advised them to close down their bank accounts and invest their money in a "high interest Yale trust fund." An Irish victim who spoke to the Irish Voice on the condition of anonymity in June admitted that, on the advice of Cucciniello, he gave him a $40,000 sum to invest.Cucciniello also gave several Irish undocumented the all clear to go home to Ireland for a vacation and, as reported in the Irish Voice last year, several were unable to return. In an effort to be convincing, Cucciniello organized fingerprinting and medicals for his clients, all procedures that need to be completed in order to qualify for a green card.Fifty seven individuals, mostly Irish immigrants, who were scammed by Cucciniello had been interviewed by the New Haven state attorney's office.Olwyn Triggs, a private investigator working on the Cucciniello case from the beginning, received several calls this week from victims. "Everyone is pretty happy with the outcome," said Triggs, who has been in close contact with several victims since last May. "He pleaded guilty on my birthday. Every time I eat cake from now on I'll think of him wasting away in prison," one said.