- Two California men pleaded guilty to H-1B fraud involving non-existent jobs at the University of California.
- The conspiracy used university positions to bypass the annual H-1B cap for private staffing gains.
- Defendants face up to five years in federal prison with sentencing scheduled for July 30, 2026.
(DUBLIN, CALIFORNIA) – Sampath Rajidi and Sreedhar Mada, two 51-year-old Telugu men from Dublin, California, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit H-1B visa fraud in a case that federal prosecutors said relied on false claims about jobs at the University of California.
Each man faces up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000. U.S. District Judge Troy L. Nunley set sentencing for July 30, 2026.
The U.S. Justice Department confirmed the guilty pleas and said court documents showed the pair knowingly provided material false information to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, or USCIS, in petitions filed over more than two years.
Federal prosecutors said the fraudulent filings ran from June 2020 to January 2023. During that period, the men submitted H-1B petitions that claimed beneficiaries would work in positions at the University of California that did not exist.
Rajidi operated two firms, S-Team Software Inc. and Uptrend Technologies LLC, that filed the petitions. Prosecutors said those companies falsely represented that the beneficiaries would hold jobs at the university.
Mada worked as Chief Information Officer at the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources. Prosecutors said he used that position to bolster the petitions even though he knew the jobs described in them were not real.
The admissions place the case at the intersection of university affiliation and private-sector visa recruiting, a mix that gave the filings added credibility during the USCIS approval process. Prosecutors said that credibility rested on falsehoods.
After USCIS approvals, the beneficiaries did not move into the university roles described in the petitions. Instead, prosecutors said, they were placed with private clients.
That sequence mattered to the government because the H-1B program allocates a limited number of visas under the annual cap. By securing approvals through petitions tied to non-existent university positions and then placing workers elsewhere, prosecutors said, the pair depleted the H-1B cap and gained an unfair advantage over competitors.
The case lays out a familiar concern in H-1B enforcement: a petition approved for one job and one employer relationship can become the basis for a different commercial arrangement after approval. Here, prosecutors said, the false representations were built into the petitions from the start.
Rajidi’s companies and Mada’s university role served different functions in the scheme described by the government. Rajidi’s firms filed the paperwork, while Mada’s title at a University of California institution gave support to claims that beneficiaries would work in university jobs.
That made the alleged deception more than a paperwork error. Court documents, as described by the Justice Department, said the men knowingly provided material false information to USCIS, the agency that reviews H-1B petitions and decides whether to grant approval.
Material false information carries particular weight in immigration cases because USCIS decisions turn on what an employer says about the offered job, the worksite, and the worker’s role. Prosecutors said those core elements were false here because the university positions never existed.
The case also centers on a part of the H-1B system that has drawn repeated scrutiny from investigators and compliance officers: whether a petition describes a real opening or merely a route to place workers at third-party clients after approval. Federal prosecutors said Rajidi and Mada used the latter model while presenting it as the former.
Universities occupy a distinct place in immigration filings because their names can signal stable, specialized positions. Prosecutors said this scheme exploited that expectation by tying the petitions to the University of California even though the named jobs were not available.
Mada’s position at University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources gave the filings an institutional connection that private staffing firms could not supply on their own. Prosecutors said he knew that connection was false as presented in the petitions.
Rajidi’s role, as described by the government, ran through both of his companies. S-Team Software Inc. and Uptrend Technologies LLC filed petitions that placed the University of California at the center of the employment story submitted to USCIS.
Once those petitions won USCIS approval, prosecutors said, the beneficiaries went to private clients rather than the university roles laid out in the filings. That detail is central to the government’s account because it links the false job descriptions to a business gain after approval.
Federal authorities have long treated that kind of conduct as a threat to program integrity because each approved petition consumes room under the annual cap. Prosecutors said the false filings here depleted that cap and gave the two men an edge over other employers seeking H-1B workers through lawful petitions.
The guilty pleas stop short of a trial, but they lock in the core allegations set out by prosecutors. Rajidi and Mada admitted guilt in a conspiracy to commit H-1B visa fraud tied to false claims about employment at a public university.
The case also offers a warning to institutions whose names appear in immigration filings but whose hiring systems may not control every outside representation made in them. A university title, a department name, or an internal role can become a selling point in petitions filed by others, and prosecutors said that happened here through Mada’s involvement.
Private firms that sponsor workers face a different risk. If a petition describes one position to obtain USCIS approval and the worker is then routed to another client arrangement, the filing itself can become the basis for criminal charges if the government concludes the original statements were knowingly false.
Workers tied to such petitions can also be drawn into the fallout when the petitioned job and the actual placement diverge. In this case, prosecutors focused on the two men who filed and supported the petitions, not on the beneficiaries placed with private clients.
The Justice Department’s account turned on a straightforward sequence: false petitions, USCIS approvals, and placements that did not match what the government had been told. The simplicity of that sequence may explain why the case ended in guilty pleas rather than a fight over technical compliance rules.
Sentencing before Judge Nunley on July 30, 2026 will determine how the court weighs a scheme prosecutors said ran from June 2020 to January 2023, used two private companies and a University of California official’s position, and turned false university jobs into approved H-1B petitions.
