Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
SALT LAKE CITY — A former secretary at a Salt Lake law firm is accused of taking a notary stamp and illegally using it for immigration-related services.
Vivian Vilamil, 34, was charged Friday in 3rd District Court with two counts of forgery, a third-degree felony; and five counts of communications fraud, a class B misdemeanor.
The investigation began in March when Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson's office notified the Utah Attorney General's Office that a woman's notary stamp was being used illegally.
"It was reported that her stamp may have been used many times on immigration-related documents," according to charging documents.
The woman says she worked at a Salt Lake City law firm in 2017 and became a notary in 2018. She then moved to Arizona in 2019 and had not used her notary stamp since. But in March, a former co-worker in Salt Lake City informed the woman that she had observed ads on social media and the internet for "apostille services and immigration-related services utilizing (her) notary stamp," the charges state. An apostille is an official certificate from a government that makes a document from one country acceptable in another.
One advertisement purported that "we do the documents and the whole process for you, so you can continue building your future and your family's in the U.S.," according to the charges.
Investigators contacted the law firm and learned that Vilamil "was not employed as a paralegal and was not authorized or encouraged to perform or provide notary services," the charges state.
She was fired from the law firm after the allegations were brought to light. She returned the woman's notary stamp to her supervisor after being fired, according to the charges.
"The lieutenant governor's office was able to cross-reference apostilles completed under (the woman's) notary stamp by Vivian Vilamil from October 2022 through March 2023," and found the stamp was used 64 times, the charges state. "All 64 were purchased through Vivian Vilamil and hand-delivered to the lieutenant governor's office for apostille authentication."
