Daily Happenings from poetsareangels

BOSTON — A Kenyan woman living in Massachusetts has been sentenced in federal court in Maine to a year in prison for her role in a fake marriage scheme.

Margaret Kimani, of Worcester, Mass., was also sentenced Tuesday to three years of probation. She was convicted in December.

Prosecutors say the 30-year-old Kimani, who came to the U.S. on a visitor’s visa on 2001, paid a U.S. citizen from Maine to marry her so she could stay permanently in the country. When that citizen backed out, she falsely claimed she’d been abused by her spouse to obtain lawful permanent resident status.

Federal authorities say their investigation uncovered more than 40 sham marriages between U.S. citizens from Maine and people from Kenya, Uganda, Zambia and Cameroon.

Twenty-two people were convicted in the scheme.