The Garífuna leader under federal indictment for committing a million-dollar immigration fraud said yesterday [February 6] that the litigation has cost her all her material goods and even made her homeless; she sleeps in an office.

“We lost everything. Everything,” said María Elena Máximo, whom the government has accused of cheating hundreds of immigrants.

She said that since the government froze their bank accounts and their property, she and her husband, Francisco Ruiz, have been living in the offices of the organization they founded, Jamalali Uagucha.

“We're living here in a precarious situation,” said Máximo. “We're living in a way that is not hygienic, not healthy, not sanitary.”

In a press conference, Máximo, Ruiz and other leaders of Jamalali Uagucha accused the Bronx political machine of wanting to destroy the Garífuna organization, despite Jamalali Uagucha's support for the politicians “in every way they've asked of us,” in Máximo's words.

“We have been a threat to Bronx politicos,” said Ruiz, claiming that what the politicians fear is that “we are growing independently of whether or not they fund us.”

In past years, both José Rivera – the Bronx Democratic Party president – and his son, City Council member Joel Rivera, have designated funds for Jamalali Uagucha.

And when Máximo confronted the accusations of fraud, it was a Joel Rivera staffer, Mike Nieves, who recommended to her a lawyer, James Cullen, whose office had served as headquarters for Joel Rivera's political campaign committee in 2005.

Máximo also says that Cullen is the Councilman's personal lawyer. “When they suggested we hire this lawyer, it was easy for us to believe that it was an alliance,” she said. But she became disillusioned with Cullen. According to Maximo, the lawyer did not do enough to loosen the freeze on over a million dollars in both personal and Jamalali Uagucha funds, which had been confiscated by the government. He also did not do enough to defend her in court, she said, by advising her to plead guilty.

Cullen declined to comment yesterday. Mike Nieves said he recommended the lawyer to Máximo because Cullen is “a good lawyer.”

“We were so good to her that we even recommended an attorney for her when she was in trouble,” said Nieves. “We helped her out. José helped her. Joel helped her, and I helped her.”

But Máximo “is making a fuss when she shouldn't be,” added Nieves. “She stands indicted in very serious matters and she's being accused of things that affect the public.”

Máximo said that she is continuing to offer classes in English at Jamalali Uagucha, but that there is no money to pay the other teachers and employees the organization had working for it. She also said she had to close another organization, Garinagu Management, she established on 149th Street.

“Why should an organization like Jamalali Uagucha have to disappear, in spite of the mistakes that have been made?” asked René Figueroa, one of the organization's directors who took part in the press conference.

Another well-known Honduran organization, FEDOHNY [Federation of Hondurans in New York], “ceased to exist. They did the same thing to it as they are doing to us,” said Máximo.

As to the accusations against her, which indicate that she entered false information of work applications and other immigration documents, Máximo said she had given the applicants information required by Immigration, but that if the applicants gave false data, “it is not the fault of the organization.”