Feds Arrest Philly Treasurer For Theft, Fraduently Obtaining US Citizenship
U.S. Attorney William M. McSwain said of the stunning arrest of the treasurer of Philadelphia, Christian Dunbar,
“It goes without saying that the duties of Dunbar’s public role require the treasurer to be a trustworthy public servant — someone who is honest beyond reproach. Unfortunately, the alleged conduct, in this case, reveals a pattern of dishonor, poor judgment and criminal behavior that spans many years.”
Dunbar was charged with faking a marriage to illegally obtain US citizenship and theft and embezzlement from a previous job with a major bank.
From The Philadelphia Inquirer:
Mayor Jim Kenney fired city Treasurer Christian Dunbar on Friday, minutes after federal authorities revealed he had been charged with fraudulently obtaining U.S. citizenship through a sham marriage and embezzling money from a prior job.
FBI agents arrested Dunbar, 40, earlier in the morning at the West Philadelphia home he shares with his wife, Fatoumata Ndiaye-Dunbar.
Federal prosecutors said that the couple secretly wed in a ceremony in Senegal in 2013, while Dunbar was legally married to another woman, a U.S. citizen he had met as a student at Temple University and had married seven years before.
The earlier spouse, who was not named, sponsored Dunbar, a Liberian immigrant, for a green card in 2009. They divorced shortly after he obtained citizenship in 2017.
Despite the seriousness of those allegations, U.S. Attorney William M. McSwain said Friday that Dunbar’s conduct in an earlier job as a financial adviser for Wells Fargo — where he had been accused of stealing $15,000 from two of his clients in 2016 — raised questions about his fitness to serve as city treasurer, a post Kenney appointed him to last year.
“It goes without saying that the duties [of Dunbar’s public role] require the treasurer to be a trustworthy public servant — someone who is honest beyond reproach,” McSwain said. “Unfortunately, the alleged conduct in this case reveals a pattern of dishonor, poor judgment and criminal behavior that spans many years.”
From The Daily Mail:
Dunbar was born in Liberia, of which his maternal grandfather, William Tubman, was president for nearly 30 years.
Dunbar came to the U.S. in 1988 and later obtained temporary protected status. He graduated from Temple University, where he was a captain of the football team.
Prosecutors said that while he was a student at Temple, he met a fellow classmate he later married in as part of an effort to eventually earn citizenship for himself.
However, during the time he was married, prosecutors say Dunbar secretly married another Temple classmate, Senegalese woman Fatoumata Ndiaye-Dunbar, in a ceremony in her home country in 2013.
They also allege that woman, who is still married to Dunbar, also was involved in a sham marriage with a Temple student before she married Dunbar.
Dunbar became a U.S. citizen in 2016 and divorced his first wife a year later, authorities said.