I’m trying my best to get this column out to you, but it’s not as easy as it seems. My teeth are chattering like dice in a coffee cup, and my fingers are as stiff as frozen French fries.

It’s a dreary early late fall afternoon here at my folks’ farmhouse, tucked away on a side road, just off Route 22 outside of Plattsburgh, New York. And although the red, orange and yellow leaves on the ground signal November, the odd 70+ degree temperatures say otherwise.

Tucked in the corner booth at a dive bar in Maggie Valley on Monday afternoon, I slid across the vinyl seating across from the young couple. They’d already ordered a couple drinks, mozzarella sticks and some fried grouper bites. Some Lynyrd Skynyrd song was blasting from the front bar. 

After pleading guilty to involvement in a marriage fraud scheme, Ruth Marie Sequoyah McCoy, of Cherokee, was sentenced to two years of probation and a $2,000 fine in a hearing held Aug. 23 at the Western District of North Carolina U.S. District Court in Asheville. 

Two defendants in a marriage fraud case set to go to trial Monday, May 14, have opted to enter a guilty plea instead. 

We rode in silence. I glanced at the clock as we came to another stoplight. Already five minutes late, I assured Amy they couldn’t start without her. 

“Don’t worry. We’ll get there when we get there,” I said as she stared out the passenger side window. Her white lacy gown filled up the car, blocking my view of the gearshift. 

Ruth Marie Sequoyah McCoy, former deputy superintendent of the Bureau of Indian Affairs Cherokee agency, pled guilty to conspiracy to commit marriage fraud during a hearing at the U.S. District Court in Asheville Friday, March 2.

The FBI’s investigation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs Cherokee Agency’s deputy superintendent Ruth Marie Sequoyah McCoy goes far deeper than the charges of marriage fraud that she and 11 others are currently facing, according to recently filed court documents.

Four people accused of entering into fraudulent marriages with non-U.S. citizens will plead guilty to the charge of marriage fraud, a crime that carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Twelve people will face federal charges following an FBI investigation into an alleged marriage fraud ring based in Cherokee.