A serial bride from the Bronx married four men in a cash-for-citizenship scam before officials caught on to her on her fifth trip down the aisle, city records show.
Officials say Sonia Estrada, 46, appears to have never gotten divorced.
"She was a pay-for-play wife," said one city official. "Each guy paid her a few thousand bucks and got their papers. She had a real racket going."
Estrada has been issued four New York marriage licenses - one in 1985, two in 1992, and one in 1994. A new system in the city clerk's office flagged her fifth application when she tried to marry again in July, sources said.
After failing to find any record of divorce from her four previous husbands, the fifth application was denied, records show.
Officials quickly began to suspect it was a citizenship scam. One of her husbands said he had no idea.
"I didn't know she was married," said Luis Montoya Rendon, a Colombian immigrant. "If she did that, she's a liar. It's wrong."
Records show her other husbands are Pedro Chinchilla, also of Colombia; Fredy Jorge of Peru, and Juaquin Mejia of the Dominican Republic. Estrada, who has three daughters with a man she has not married, was summoned to an administrative tribunal to explain herself. When confronted with evidence of her past marriages, Estrada blamed her dead twin, Gloria.Administrative Law Judge Ingrid Addison didn't buy it.
"It appeared all too convenient to accuse Gloria, since she was no longer around to dispute it," Addison wrote in her decision.
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