A troubled Skokie woman with a history of lying to the police engineered an elaborate “hoax” to make it appear as if she’d been detained by federal immigration agents for more than a day, a Wisconsin sheriff told reporters Friday.
During a news conference, Dodge County Sheriff Dale Schmidt presented evidence that he said exposed Sundas “Sunny” Naqvi’s web of lies about being detained last month at the county jail and a suburban U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility.
Schmidt said he couldn’t charge Naqvi with any crimes in Wisconsin, but he’d referred the matter to other law enforcement agencies, including the FBI and Illinois State Police.
He also announced he filed a federal defamation lawsuit against her and Cook County Commissioner Kevin Morrison, who was among the political candidates and representatives who spoke out about Naqvi’s purported detention as a U.S. citizen. He’s seeking $1 million.
Last month, Morrison joined Naqvi’s family and other supporters when they brought attention to her alleged detention. They told reporters that Naqvi and five colleagues had been detained by federal immigration agents at O’Hare Airport while returning from an overseas work trip.
They said Naqvi, 28, and her co-workers were then taken to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview before Naqvi was transferred in ICE custody to Dodge County Jail in Wisconsin, where ICE detainees are held. They even shared screenshots that purportedly showed she had been taken to both facilities.
Sarah Afzal, sister of Sundas “Sunny” Naqvi, shown during a news conference outside of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview last month. At that time, she claimed her sister had been detained by federal immigration officials. Officials have since said there’s no evidence corroborating Sunny Naqvi’s story.
Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
But it was all a lie, according to Schmidt.
He shared text messages, surveillance footage and hotel records indicating Naqvi went from the airport to a Rosemont hotel before asking someone to drive her to Wisconsin, where she “reunited” with her family.
Cellphone location records showing she was inside the jail were likely spoofed, Schmidt said.
“I don’t have an answer for why you would do something like that,” Schmidt said. “I could hypothesize, just as all of us could. There’s a hypothesis: maybe it’s just to go after President Trump. Maybe it’s just to go after ICE.
“Maybe it’s because it’s something she enjoys doing.”
Naqvi’s story had already started to unravel after it made headlines and her history of deception was exposed.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security previously released images showing Naqvi leaving a secure area at O’Hare, just an hour after she was flagged for screening.
The Cook County sheriff’s office poked another hole in her account, saying she wasn’t found during a search of the Broadview facility.
And the multinational software company she claimed she worked for said she’d never been hired, and that none of its employees had been detained at O’Hare.
Naqvi didn’t respond to a request for comment. Morrison said he couldn’t comment, citing the “pending litigation.”
Schmidt’s broadside marks the latest example of Naqvi facing allegations of falsely presenting herself as a victim. Records obtained by the Sun-Times show Naqvi has repeatedly been charged with filing false police reports.
In one case, filed in Cook County court, she was convicted of lying about being the victim of a violent sexual assault and was sentenced to two years probation.
Naqvi claimed stab wounds she had on her thighs were sustained during the alleged attack near her home in Skokie. Eventually, Skokie police found she had falsely accused an ex-boyfriend of assaulting her, and instead brought a felony case against her.
Skokie police found the ex-boyfriend had actually been “catfished” on a dating app and drawn to the Evanston-Chicago border, likely by Naqvi, around the time of the alleged attack.
But it wasn’t the first time Naqvi was accused of making a bogus report — or breaking the law.
Series of criminal charges
In May 2019, Naqvi and her roommate at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign were accused of holding that same ex-boyfriend at knifepoint, according to police reports.
She was accused of pushing the boyfriend to delete evidence off his phone and computer related to allegations she’d made against a professor she accused of sexually harassing her and trading sex for better grades, according to media reports. The professor stepped down but denied wrongdoing.
Naqvi was charged with intimidation and aggravated unlawful restraint, court records show.
About a week later, Naqvi reported the ex-boyfriend broke into her apartment, stole pills and left a note admitting to making up the earlier incident, according to a Champaign police report. She allegedly asked police if she’d be allowed to graduate that weekend if they arrested the ex-boyfriend.
When officers found the ex-boyfriend, he said he’d been in meetings with the school’s dean all day, then spent the rest of the evening with his parents, records show. Naqvi was eventually charged with making a false report.
In January 2020, Naqvi reported her car was stolen, but she was again charged with falsifying that report.
Naqvi was never convicted in any of the cases filed in Champaign County court, records show.
Naqvi has also been evicted twice in recent years, Cook County court records show. In 2024, a River North apartment complex said she owed over $43,000 in rent and fees. Around the same time, JP Morgan said she owed nearly $15,000 in unpaid credit card debt.
Schmidt, the Dodge County sheriff, said Naqvi had roped a new man into subsidizing her lifestyle and paying $12,000 for the trip she took to Turkey before she claimed she was detained. That same man drove Naqvi to Wisconsin but ultimately began cooperating with the sheriff’s office after seeing media reports about the alleged detainment, according to Schmidt.
The man told the sheriff’s office he gave Naqvi about $25,000 in a month “because he thought there was a very long-term relationship in their future,” Schmidt said.
The man reported he was charged $1,000 to pay a law firm on a day Naqvi said she was detained — a charge he didn’t authorize, according to Schmidt.
Naqvi “continues to do this and get away with it, and she has other people who are helping to do that,” Schmidt said.
“That’s what this is about, making sure that people know that she, and people like her, are out there, and making sure that it doesn’t happen again.”
