A California attorney serving prison time for attempting to extort money from the lawyer representing a rabbi in an immigration visa fraud investigation has failed to convince a federal appeals court to reverse his conviction.
In 2011, a jury found Alfred Nash Villalobos of West Hills, Calif., guilty of attempted extortion and endeavoring to obstruct a grand jury investigation. Specifically, Villalobos was convicted of accepting an envelope containing $50,000 in cash from an attorney for Rabbi Amitai Yemini, executive director of the Chabad Israel Center in Los Angeles, who federal prosecutors were investigating for allegedly obtaining fraudulent religious worker visas.
