Illegal alien pleads guilty

May 2, 2007

An Indonesian national who ran a computer sales and identity theft scam from Casper pleaded guilty on Tuesday to one count of violating a deportation order, according to federal court records.

David Suryadinata now has been placed in the custody of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and will be deported, according to court records.

Suryadinata pleaded guilty to the one count and was credited with the jail time he has already served during the change of plea hearing before Chief U.S. District Judge William Downes.

The final judgment in the case will not occur until July after restitution issues are resolved. The amount of restitution is unknown at this time, according to the court records.

Suryadinata, a computer expert and Internet seller of computer equipment, could have been sentenced to up to four years in prison and a $250,000 fine, according to the March 22 indictment.

He also was charged with two other felonies in the March 22 indictment: identity theft to obtain more than $1,000 of property over a year; and using a Social Security account number that was not assigned to him.

Those counts will be dropped, according to court records.

Suryadinata's attorney Keith Nachbar could not be reached for comment.

Suryadinata entered the U.S. in September 1998 on a student visa, which required him to attend school full time, according to the affidavit accompanying the Feb. 9 criminal complaint.

He went to Casper College and made the president's honor roll in the mid-1990s and as late as February 2000, according to Star-Tribune archives and an Internet search.

But in May 2003, El Paso, Texas-area border patrol agents stopped him and found his visa had expired, according to the Feb. 9 affidavit.

An immigration judge ordered his deportation. Suryadinata unsuccessfully appealed, and he had until April 6, 2005, to leave the U.S. voluntarily.

Suryadinata didn't leave, had a warrant issued for his arrest, and dropped out of sight for nearly two years.

He was tracked to a business at 1111 E. B St. in Casper where authorities found hundreds of boxes of Dell computers and 17 credit cards with a dozen different names, according to the affidavit.

Suryadinata's business involved buying computer equipment from large liquidators and reselling the merchandise through eBay. He obtained credit cards using bogus names, using names of other people including his deceased father-in-law and using random Social Security numbers to buy the equipment, according to the affidavit.

He had moved in 2006 from Taos, N.M., to Casper because the cost of living in Wyoming was less expensive and he was hiding from immigration authorities by setting up fictitious addresses in the Portland, Ore., area.

Suryadinata also used a commercial mail receiving agency to forward his mail from Oregon to other addresses including his residence in the 300 block of South McKinley, according to the affidavit.

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