Yearbook photos show conflicting identities

MPD officer charged with falsely claiming citizenship

By JOHN DIEDRICH
jdiedrich@journalsentinel.com
Posted: May 31, 2007

Oscar Ayala-Cornejo, the Milwaukee police officer suspected of being an illegal immigrant, was betrayed by information in his high school yearbook, according to a federal criminal complaint filed Thursday.

5/31/07: Officer arrested; citizenship questioned

Prosecutors say Ayala-Cornejo, 24, attended Pulaski High School under his real name but in 1999 moved to Hamilton High School and started using the name of his dead cousin, Jose A. Morales.

Immigration agents found that the two yearbook photos matched but the names differed, a key piece of evidence in an exhaustive investigation to prove this police officer is not who he says he is, the complaint says.

At a hearing in federal court, Ayala-Cornejo was charged with falsely representing himself as U.S. citizen. If convicted, he faces up to three years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

The five-year department member was ordered held by Magistrate Judge Aaron Goodstein until a detention hearing on Monday.

He was taken away by U.S. marshals. Several family members were on hand and wept. They declined to comment afterward.
He is suspended from the force and is being paid, per state law.

State prosecutors are reviewing possible charges against the officer, said Milwaukee District Attorney John Chisholm. Others also are under investigation on suspicion of lying to agents during the investigation, sources said.

Agents learned of the case by an anonymous telephone tip on Feb. 20, the complaint says.

The real Jose A. Morales was a U.S. citizen, but died of cancer in Mexico in 1989 or 1990, the complaint says, quoting the deceased's brother, Jamie Morales, who said he attended the funeral.

Jose Morales' father offered to give his dead son's identity and all the paperwork to prove it to Oscar Ayala-Cornejo, said Jamie Morales, according to the complaint.

The man, identified as Ayala-Cornejo by prosecutors, was born in Mexico and is not a U.S. citizen, the complaint said. His brother, Alex Ayala-Cornejo, also a Milwaukee police officer, is a U.S. citizen, it said.

Immigration agents discovered that in citizenship paperwork filed by Alex Ayala-Cornejo on behalf of his parents, the complaint says.

The complaint says Oscar Ayala-Cornejo began using his dead cousin's name and a new date of birth in 1999 when he changed schools.

Three years later he was hired as a Milwaukee police aide and underwent the same background investigation that officers received. He became an officer in December 2004. His personnel file was not released Thursday.

In his police file, federal agents found a birth certificate and school records identifying the officer as Jose A. Morales, the complaint says. The records go up to 1999 when, investigators say, Ayala-Cornejo began living as Morales.

Agents also found that a passport was issued to someone claiming to be Jose Morales in 1998, at least eight years after he died, the complaint says. Agents discovered a Mexican birth certificate showing that Oscar Ayala-Cornejo was born in Mexico, it says.

In interviews with federal immigration agents and Milwaukee police officers on Wednesday, at least seven relatives of the officer admitted to the deceit, the complaint says, including his mother and sister.

Chief Nannette Hegerty said the department "did everything it possibly could to determine this young man's identity," adding that immigration agents agreed. An official with Immigration and Customs Enforcement declined to comment.

"No matter what kind of background we did, we wouldn't have been able to find it, which is unfortunate," Hegerty said.

She said the department does not believe there are any other illegal immigrants in the ranks and she doesn't see a need to change background checks. She also didn't anticipate losing criminal cases, saying high-profile cases are handled by detectives.

Chisholm said his office was reviewing cases to see if the officer was a key witness in any of them. When an officer is accused of lying, the officer cannot be used as a witness and old cases in which the officer was a central witness could be appealed, he said.

Linda Spice of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this story.


http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=613357