Interesting case from the Supreme Court, which is hearing the case of Ignacio Flores Figueroa, a Mexican citizen who used a fake name and Social to work at an Illinois steel plant.
After a few years, though, he wanted to work under his own name. So he bought new papers and a new Social -- only this Social wasn't a fake. It actually belonged to someone. Eventually, he got caught, and part of his punishment included a two-year mandatory stint for identity theft.
His attorney, however, doesn't think that's fair. Snip:
At the Supreme Court on Wednesday, Figueroa's lawyer Kevin Russell will argue that the identity theft statute and its mandatory penalty was wrongly applied to Figueroa because the statute requires knowing use of someone else's identity documents, and Figueroa didn't know the Social Security number he was using belonged to a real person.
"It really comes down to a question of whether you can commit identity theft if you don't know that the person whose identity you're mistakenly using even exists," Russell says.
Hat Tip: Many thanks, Rhonda!
