Gurmeet Singh, 55, has been stripped of his U.S. Citizenship nearly 15 years after he raped a young woman at knifepoint in his taxi, the Justice Department announced Monday.
The India-born former cabdriver is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence at Shawangunk Correctional Facility in Ulster County, the same maximum-security prison that houses “Son of Sam” killer David Berkowitz. Brooklyn federal judge Nicholas Garaufis issued an order last week giving Singh until Sept. 16 to surrender his citizenship documents, including his naturalization certificate and U.S. Passport.
Singh became a naturalized citizen on Oct. 19, 2011, roughly five months after the assault, by concealing the crime throughout his immigration proceedings, according to the Justice Department. He had initially entered the United States in February 1992 on a six-month temporary visitor visa, then remained in the country without authorization for years until a family visa petition enabled him to obtain permanent resident status in June 2000.
The attack occurred in May 2011, when Singh was driving the victim from Williamsburg to her East Village apartment. The young woman fell asleep during the ride and woke to find the cabdriver on top of her, prosecutors said at his 2014 sentencing. He was holding a knife against her throat and asking her whether she wanted to live, according to a victim impact statement read in court.
Singh threatened the victim, then bound and gagged her, blindfolded her, removed her clothes and raped her, prosecutors detailed. She managed to flee the taxi on foot afterward and flagged down a passerby for help.
Singh was convicted in 2014 of kidnapping and the violent sexual assault. The gap between the crime and the citizenship revocation stretched over a decade as authorities moved to unwind his naturalization.
“Singh unlawfully obtained the privileges of U.S. Citizenship by concealing horrible criminal acts,” Assistant Attorney General Brett A. Shumate of the Justice Department’s Civil Division said Monday.
Shumate added that the Department will continue to protect the integrity of the citizenship process and hold accountable those who defraud the immigration system.
