Sunitha Guntipally gets 4 years for visa fraud

FREMONT, CA — Indian American Sunitha Guntipally of Fremont has been sentenced to over four years in prison for role in H-1B visa fraud conspiracy, mail fraud, witness tampering, and related crimes.

Sunitha, along with her husband Venkat Guntipally, founded DS Soft Tech and Equinett, two employment-staffing companies for technology firms.

According to the Department of Justice, a federal grand jury indicted Sunitha, 44, of Fremont, and three co-defendants, Venkat Guntipally, 49, of Fremont; Pratap “Bob” Kondamoori, 56, of Incline Village, Nev.; and Sandhya Ramireddi, 58, of Pleasanton, in 33-counts on May 5, 2016.

Sunitha admitted that between 2010 and 2014, they falsely submitted more than one hundred fraudulent H-1B petitions in the name of several companies, which either did not exist or never had requirement for H-1B workers, thus creating a pool of H-1B beneficiaries who then could be placed at legitimate employment positions in the Northern District of California and elsewhere.

According to the indictment, Kondamoori responded to federal law enforcement officers investigating the visa fraud conspiracy with various false representations.

Kondamoori allegedly represented that, among other things, he and SemSolar were developing a product called “Eftia Master.Scribe” for which he required H-1B workers; that Softbank, Sprint’s parent company, was both an investor in SemSolar and a business partner of SISL Networks; and that Kondamoori was a general partner of Focus Ventures.

According to the indictment, all of those representations were false. Kondamoori is charged with one count of obstruction of justice.

Ramireddi also is alleged to have advised an H-1B worker to mislead a government agent for the purpose of hindering, delaying, or preventing the government investigation.

The judge had sentenced Ramireddi to 14 months’ imprisonment and Kondamoori to 20 months’ imprisonment for their respective roles earlier this year. Venkat is scheduled to be sentenced on March 21, 2018.