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DHS official tried: kept alien housekeeper

BOSTON, March 16 (UPI) -- A top official with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is on trial for encouraging an illegal immigrant to stay in the country, court records showed.

Lorraine Henderson, a regional director of Homeland Security, Customs and Border Protection, was suspended without pay from her position after her potentially incriminating statements were picked up by a recording device worn by her Brazilian housekeeper, prosecutors told a court in Boston Monday, the Boston Globe reported.

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Fabiana Bittencourt secretly cooperated with authorities as she cleaned Henderson's condominium in Salem for several years, the newspaper said.

"Lorraine Henderson violated the same immigration law that she had taken an oath to uphold,'' Assistant U.S. Attorney Diane C. Freniere told federal court jurors.

Francis J. DiMento, Henderson's lawyer, said Henderson broke no laws as federal immigration law allows hiring illegal immigrants as intermittent domestic employees.

Henderson, however, is charged with encouraging an illegal immigrant to remain in the United States, which is a felony punishable by a maximum sentence of five years, unless the crime was committed for financial gain, which ups the maximum sentence to 10 years, Freniere said.

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