by WorldTribune Staff / 247 Real News July 7, 2024
After stealing the identity of an American citizen, an illegal alien signed up for Medicare and went on to receive a taxpayer-funded kidney transplant, a report said.
Guatemalan national Jeremias Otoniel Herrera Rosales stole the identity of Daniel Glenn Guerra and lived under that name for more than a decade, Stephan Dinan reported for The Washington Times on July 5.
"He wasn’t able to hold a job due to his poor health, but he did live off government assistance that he received because he was using an American’s identity," Dinan noted. "That included getting the kidney transplant in 2019, paid for by Uncle Sam."
Via his identity theft, the illegal received more than $400,000 in taxpayer-funded care.
At some point, the identity theft victim confronted Rosales, according to court documents.
Investigators caught up with Rosales in 2020, figuring that would put a stop to his fraud.
"When they went to arrest him last year they were surprised to find he was still using the stolen identity and collecting Medicare benefits," Dinan noted.
Prosecutors said Rosales could have tried to win citizenship as the spouse of a U.S. citizen and would have been in the clear applying for government benefits. It’s not clear why he didn’t take that step.
Prosecutors said — and Rosales admitted — that an American citizen missed out on the chance to get the kidney he received.
“The defendant took and received an organ transplant under a false identity from someone else that otherwise would have obtained it,” Ronald Timmons, an assistant U.S. attorney, told the court.
Rosales was sentenced this week in Sioux City, Iowa, to 16 months in prison.
Rosales was convicted along with his wife, Jennifer Guadalupe Herrera, and Jaklyn Guerra, her sister. Both women are U.S. citizens. They were sentenced to one-month imprisonment.
All three were ordered to pay a total of half a million dollars in restitution.
The stolen identity belonged to Guerra’s son, who lived under another name most of his life and was surprised to learn someone was using his real name, according to the investigator who pursued the case.
