February 10, 2025
Archive

Man gets 1 year, 1 day in identity theft case

BANGOR – An El Salvador man linked to the owner of the Mexican Restaurant in Hancock was sentenced Tuesday in U.S. District Court to a year and a day in federal prison for aggravated identity theft.

Abraham Gallardo Paredes, also known as Juan Lorenzo Hernandez Lopez, 49, pleaded guilty to the charge in November.

Charges of visa and Social Security fraud were dismissed.

U.S. District Judge John Woodcock also sentenced him to one year of supervised release. He was arrested June 28 along with Doris Amanda Ayala Escalante, 39, of Harrington.

Woodcock in March sentenced her to 14 months in prison – one-half the time recommended under the federal sentencing guidelines – for hiring illegal aliens to work at Washington County businesses and the restaurant she operated with relatives.

The judge also went outside the guideline range in sentencing Paredes, who faced a mandatory minimum of two years in prison.

Paredes admitted that he had used a fake birth certificate that contained the name of a dentist from his country to obtain legal documents to enter and work in the U.S., according to court documents.

The time Paredes and Escalante, a native of Honduras, were held without bail after their arrests will be credited to their sentences.

Both are expected to be deported after completing their sentences.

Investigators with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement at first thought that Paredes had overstayed his tourist visa, according to court documents. For that, he would have been removed from the country but not charged with a crime.

Further investigation found that checks written from Escalante to Paredes and vice versa had been cashed, according to court documents. Checks to Paredes also were found in an account used to pay workers at a Lubec sea cucumber processing plant and wreath factory in 2005 and 2006.

jharrison@bangordailynews.net

990-8207


Have feedback? Want to know more? Send us ideas for follow-up stories.

comments for this post are closed

You may also like