BROOKLYN (AP) — A convicted bigamist posing as a veteran immigration lawyer scammed thousands of dollars from Guyanese immigrants in Brooklyn and gave them advice so bad they now face deportation, prosecutors said Thursday.

Wilmer Rivera Melendez promised green cards but pursued avenues that would never yield them, changed his phone number to evade his “clients� when they started asking questions and even startled some by proposing they marry him in order to get legal residency, prosecutors said.

Melendez, 60, denied the allegations, which add to a series of far-flung and colorful brushes with the law. Records show he was imprisoned for bigamy in Georgia; prosecutors said he also was convicted in an office burglary in the U.S. Virgin Islands and broke out of an Ohio jail through a ceiling hole in 1971.

Although the charges in Melendez’s latest case are limited to New York, prosecutors said he set up a scheme that stretched from his home in Covington, Ga., to several states.

“He just messed me up,� said Derick Darnley, a 37-year-old Guyanese boat-maintenance worker who said he asked Melendez to get a valid visa extended and ended up with a potential deportation case — after spending about $1,800.

Claiming to be a lawyer with 20 years of immigration-related experience in federal agencies, the Puerto Rico-born Melendez promised to get green cards for at least 14 Guyanese immigrants in Brooklyn, prosecutors said.

They and others paid at least $75,000 for misguided efforts that ended up spurring deportation proceedings for some, according to prosecutors and immigration lawyer Sheldon Zelig, who alerted prosecutors to the cases. Prosecutors said many of the immigrants were in the country illegally, but immigration authorities didn’t know until Melendez started filing paperwork for them.

Melendez was released from prison in 2006 after serving nearly two years for bigamy.

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