Ashley Stilson
7 hrs ago


Francisco Javier Villasenor-Gomez


After unknowingly selling fake Social Security cards to an undercover agent, a man was sentenced to several weeks in jail and released into the custody of immigration officials in January.

Court records show Francisco Javier Villasenor-Gomez, 37, entered the country illegally from Mexico and sold fake identification documents in Utah County.

Villasenor-Gomez created the government IDs at his Lehi home then used his truck “to store, conceal and transport fraudulent documents to be delivered to persons ordering said documents through him,” police reported.

During the investigation, the undercover agent bought a U.S. Permanent Resident Card and Social Security cards from Villasenor-Gomez on three separate occasions.

The transactions happened at in the parking lot of the Orem FrontRunner Station and the parking lot of the Cinemark theater at the Provo mall, according to a probable cause report.

Villasenor-Gomez was also employed at a local steakhouse restaurant using a fake Social Security number and earned more than $5,000 in wages, the report stated.

Investigators determined the Social Security number belonged to another U.S. citizen and Villasenor-Gomez had forged the name as his own on the employment paperwork.

The Utah Attorney General’s Office spent four months investigating him before Villasenor-Gomez was arrested and charged with two counts of producing false identification and two counts of possessing forgery writing devices.

Those charges were dismissed in December after he pleaded guilty to an amended third-degree felony charge of possession of another’s identification documents.

A 4th District Court judge sentenced Villasenor-Gomez to 60 days in jail with credit given for 43 days served since his arrest in November.

He was then released into the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and ordered not to enter the United States illegally again.

https://www.heraldextra.com/news/loc...b03ecc567.html