LAS VEGAS — Their "he says, she says" tale rivals any Latin American soap opera, with allegations of marital infidelity, diplomatic intrigue and ruthless revenge.
She says he is an unscrupulous diplomat who arranged to get her a fraudulent passport and visa when they were lovers, then had her arrested when their affair ended badly.
He says she's a manipulative beauty queen who made up the affair and other outrageous accusations as part of a scam to avoid getting kicked out of the country.
He is Fernando Castillo, 35, Guatemala's Los Angeles-based consul general, one of the country's top government officials in the Western United States.
She is Julia Arana, 29, a third-place finalist for the title of Miss Guatemala in 2000.
They are locked in an unusual public dispute, with his reputation and her ability to stay in the United States swaying in the balance.
"Fundamentally," said Judge Ronald L. Mullins, an Immigration Court judge in Las Vegas, "this is a lovers' quarrel. They had a dispute and the fallout from that dispute has been quite ugly."
Mullins now is weighing their stories as he decides whether to deport Arana, an illegal immigrant caught with an allegedly fraudulent U.S. passport. Arana has argued she is entitled to asylum, saying that Castillo's influence with the Guatemalan government would leave her vulnerable to retaliation in her homeland.
Mullins has tentatively ruled that she must leave the country.
The complex claims and counterclaims are laid out in a thick court file in Las Vegas Immigration Court, including emotional e-mails that detail the highs and lows of their relationship.
Their conflict is more than just a salacious tale. The U.S. Embassy in Guatemala City is investigating possible fraud in how a U.S. diplomatic visa was issued to Arana. And U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is looking into whether its agents acted properly when they arrested her in March 2004 for alleged passport fraud and other violations. The agencies confirmed their inquiries but would not comment further.
On this much the two sides agree: They met in fall 2001. Over the next two years, they were photographed together around the country. They had a falling-out in spring 2003. In a fit of anger, she sent copies of a nude photo of him to the Guatemalan Consulate in Los Angeles. He sued to get a restraining order forbidding her to contact him, then dropped the case.
On just about everything else, they part ways.
'I Was Excited'
Arana says she was immediately impressed with Castillo when she met him in September 2001 at a Las Vegas reception in his honor.
He was just 31, young to be named to such an esteemed position. He gave her his business card, she said, and mentioned a possible internship at the consulate. At the time, she was, she admits, an illegal immigrant, studying political science at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and working as a waitress.
Here is her account of how the relationship evolved, then came undone, according to an interview at her Las Vegas home, tapes of Immigration Court hearings and allegations in the court file:
She called Castillo about three weeks after they met. He asked if she had a boyfriend, explaining that he was divorced and that his ex-wife and twin daughters lived in New York. They began an "intimate" relationship, she testified in court.
As the months passed, Arana testified, she began attending official Guatemalan events with him throughout the country, in Santa Fe, Salt Lake City, Washington, D.C. Photos of them together in various locations, arm-in-arm, are part of the court file. One shows them lying together on a beach in Hawaii, where she had gone to compete in the Miss Hawaiian Tropics pageant in 2003.
She often visited him in his Los Angeles home, she testified, flying here on his dime. He charmed her with cards and flowers, she said; he phoned and e-mailed often.
"The truth is that we love each other," reads one e-mail in the court file -- translated from Spanish -- that he allegedly wrote to her. "And we are both a great catch for each other and I miss you and I want you here as soon as possible."
She met his friends. He met her family. "I was excited," she testified. "I was thinking I was going to marry him."
Then, in March 2003, immigration authorities arrested Arana. A former friend had reported Arana for allegedly using her identity years ago to make a false U.S. passport -- a contention Arana disputes.
She called Castillo, who found her a well-known immigration attorney.
The attorney, Enrique Arevalo, later withdrew from the case, citing an alleged misrepresentation by Castillo. In court documents, he said that though Castillo had initially described Arana as a "close friend" of the family, the attorney later discovered the pair "had a personal relationship that went sour."
