Two Hyattsville men plead guilty in largest identity fraud scheme in Maryland history

by Jeremy Arias | Staff Writer

 

Two Hyattsville men who police say were the ringleaders of the largest fraudulent document mill ever uncovered in Maryland were sentenced Friday to four years in prison.

 

Hilario Hernandez-Romero, 27, and his brother Margarito Hernandez-Romero, 31, both of Hyattsville, pleaded guilty to identification document fraud and aggravated identity theft before U.S. District Judge Catherine C. Blake in U.S. District Court in Baltimore on Friday morning. They allegedly organized and ran the fraudulent document mill with three co-defendants who distributed thousands of fake driver's licenses, work visas and other documents from about October 2005 through Nov. 17, 2009, according to Rod J. Rosenstein, U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland.

 

"There were thousands of false IDs that we found in their home,'' Rosenstein said. " ... [These documents] were being sold to people who do not have documentation in the United States or people who are looking to commit fraud."

 

The brothers pleaded guilty after reaching a plea agreement with prosecuting attorneys in which they would be sentenced to 24 months for each charge for a total of 48 months each. Both brothers are Mexican citizens living in the country without documentation and will be deported after completing their sentence, Fine said.

 

Among the documents seized from computers in the brothers' shared home were driver's licenses from 35 different states, work identification documents for both government and private telecommunications companies, Legal Permanent Resident cards and social security cards, Rosenstein said. All said, more than 3,000 U.S. citizens were victims of the brothers' identity theft scheme, he added.

 

While the brothers were prosecuted under the Maryland Identity Theft Task Force, coordination between law enforcement agencies was initially slow as several agencies, including Immigrations and Customs Enforcement and officers from Montgomery County's Fourth District Police uncovered the operation around the same time last year, said Fine, who also leads the task force.

 

"This was an interesting case," she said following the sentencing. "It actually was the convergence of multiple investigations, so Montgomery County police, ICE and even the Secret Service were working on different aspects of the case at the same time."

 

Fourth District police uncovered the organization in October 2009 when one of the co-defendants working for the brothers sold illegal documents to an undercover officer in Wheaton, Fine said. The bust quickly led to additional resources for investigating officers and agencies, Rosenstein said.

 

"That's the evidence that we needed to get us to be able to get a search warrant [for the brothers' house] and go forward with the case," he said.

 

Capt. John Damskey, who commands the Fourth District police, also was pleased with the hard work of his officers and the successful coordination between law enforcement agencies.

 "The hard work by the detectives of the Fourth District Special Assignment Team, with the assistance of our law enforcement partners, brought about a successful end to a complex and far-reaching case," Damskey wrote in an e-mail sent to The Gazette on Thursday. "This was definitely a huge win for law enforcement and for our county."

 

Damskey specifically cited the assistance of the United States Secret Service, Maryland State Police, the Social Security Administration, the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Maryland Motor Vehicles Administration as integral in closing the case and arresting all those involved.

 

Neither Margarito nor Hilario Hernandez-Romero chose to make a verbal statement through a Spanish-speaking interpreter to Judge Blake during the hearing, but Margarito Hernandez-Romero's defense attorney, Gary A. Ticknor, paraphrased from a letter both clients had written to Blake pleading for lenience at the sentencing hearing. The brothers also wish to be incarcerated together, Ticknor said.

 

"They have missed one another a lot, and my client has discussed this with me extensively," Ticknor said. "This is his friend; this is his brother; ... He's remorseful for his actions. Incarceration has been a wake up call for both [Margarito Hernandez-Romero] and his brother."

Blake agreed to recommend the brothers be incarcerated together if possible. Neither Ticknor nor Hilario Hernandez-Romero's attorney, Gary E. Proctor, wished to comment further on the case after the sentencing.  

 

All of three of the Hernandez-Romero brothers' co-defendants—Neonel Aguero-Betancourt, Guillermo Canuto-Corona and Claudia Guzman-Vasquez—have pleaded guilty to their roles in the scheme, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Maryland.

 

Of the co-defendants, only Canuto-Corona has been sentenced, said attorney spokeswoman Marcia Murphy. Canuto-Corona was sentenced to a year and a day in jail earlier this month, she said.

 

During the course of the investigation, approximately $52,700 was seized in the form of a bank check and two separate bank accounts. Investigators have further determined from seized computer documents that the group had been selling as many as 100 false immigration documents and upward of 10 commercial driver's licenses per month for $120 and $300 per document, respectively, according to court documents.

 

No attorney information was available for Aguero-Betancourt or Guzman-Vasquez as of Monday.