Trebuchet_MSSeptember 21, 2000 Times_New_RomanParalegal Welcomes Attorney's Arrest Trebuchet_MSby MAE M. CHENG 3333,3333,3333Staff Writer Times_New_RomanGood news doesn't come often for Beverly Church when it comes to the Golden Venture immigrants. Many have been sent back to China and some had languished for years in American jails. But word yesterday of the racketeering arrest of the Manhattan lawyer Robert Porges, who had represented many of the immigrants, was certainly something Church welcomed. For years, Church had her suspicions about Porges and his ability to give adequate legal representation to the immigrants. When she suggested they choose another lawyer, Church remembered their fear. "You could see the terror in their eyes,” said Church, a paralegal in York, Pa., who worked on some of the Golden Venture cases. "There's no way they were going to buck this guy.” Porges, who has an office in lower Manhattan, was accused yesterday of using his law firm to help Chinese smugglers bring undocumented immigrants into the country. The Golden Venture, an aging freighter carrying nearly 300 Chinese undocumented immigrants, ran aground in June, 1993, in the Rockaways. The passengers, who spent months in the hold of the ship with little food and ventilation, came to symbolize the exploding problem of human smuggling from China to the United States. Porges handled about 80 percent of Golden Venture immigration cases in the beginning, according to Church. Similarly, when a boat carrying 23 smuggled Chinese ran aground in Bay Head, N.J., in May, 1998, Porges was originally the attorney for all but two of those immigrants. Among those on this boat was Wang Wudong, 46, who five years earlier made the dangerous voyage on the Golden Venture and was sent back to China but decided to try his luck again. Porges was his attorney both times Wang was caught. Porges' clients were not limited to those who found themselves in the New York area. In 1995, he was the attorney for a Chinese teen in the Seattle area who also had been smuggled into the United States. Church said that many of the Golden Venture immigrants knew before setting foot on U.S. shores that they were to call Porges should they run into trouble. "At least three or four said if we needed anything we were told to call him,” she said. The problem, according to Church, was that Porges had not done a good job in many of the cases, and so she began encouraging the immigrants to find new representation. The immigrants refused but would not elaborate, Church said. One immigrant, who had been a client of Porges', was seen being forced into a car after he was released from detention in York, Church said. That immigrant has not been heard from since, she said. Repeated calls to Porges' law firm in Chinatown were not answered. Porges' defense attorney also could not be reached for comment. Attorneys in New York who have also worked cases involving Chinese smuggled immigrants said rumors -- which they declined to specify -- had run rampant about the way Porges retained his clients. But they also said he handled some successful asylum claims. Newsday _______________________________________________ Stop-traffic mailing list Stop-traffic@friends-partners.org http://fpmail.friends-partners.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/stop-traffic