John Doe Sentenced


September 7, 2012

A long-running identity theft scheme turns into a potential national security threat.


Audio Transcript

Mollie Halpern: A long-running identity theft scheme turns into a potential national security threat.

I’m Mollie Halpern of the FBI, and this is Gotcha.

A man known only as John Doe assumed the identity of his victim, a Miami man, for more than two decades. Florida Highway Patrol Trooper Richard Blanco…

Richard Blanco: The only thing that we have is John Doe; we don’t have his real name.

Halpern: The FBI was alerted to the crime last September when Trooper Blanco, a member of the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force in Jacksonville, Florida, arrested Doe for driver’s license fraud. Doe had obtained 23 government-issued IDs in his victim’s name and used them to access Navy vessels and secure areas at Jacksonville’s ports and airport where he worked.

FBI Supervisory Special Agent Paxton Stelly says the FBI worked with its law enforcement partners to solve this case.

Paxton Stelly: We didn’t know why he had these IDs. We thought that was just a threat against the port and definitely a vulnerability. So, we investigated it.

Halpern: Doe was not charged with any terrorism-related offenses but was sentenced to 10 years in prison for aggravated identity theft and other crimes. This has been the FBI’s closed case of the week.

Audio Download