Forged I.D. lands robbery victim in county jail
BY ROBERT MOORE, Tribune Staff Writer
May 3, 2008

While the overwhelming majority of Hispanics incarcerated at the Hamblen County Jail are allegedly illegal aliens, not all undocumented residents who wind up behind bars have committed any other crime than entering the United States illegally.

Just ask David Condidato Divera Agusto, a 21-year-old alleged illegal alien who sought treatment at a Morristown hospital Friday night for a stab wound he sustained when he was robbed April 24..

Agusto presented a forged resident-alien card for which he paid $100, according to officer Mario Solorzano with the Morristown Police Department, who went to the hospital to interview the injured man.

The men who stabbed Agusto and robbed him of $300 remain at large. After Agusto’s wound was treated and bandaged, he was jailed for criminal simulation.

Agusto told Solorzano that he was outside his Fairway East Apartments residence on North Economy Road when he was stabbed and robbed around 3 a.m. on April 24.

The man said two black men snuck up behind him, placed a cloth over his mouth, then dragged him out of sight where they punched him in the mouth and stabbed him once in the back while stealing his wallet.

The two suspects made their getaway in a small black vehicle. Agusto didn’t report the incident or get treatment for the stab wound for eight days.

Agusto isn’t the only undocumented Hispanic who was jailed Friday or Saturday in Morristown who is something less than a desperate criminal.

All Justino Escadon, 33, and Celia Ramos Silva, 24, wanted to do is cash their paychecks at First Tennessee Bank Friday afternoon.

Once again, Solorzano got involved because the alien-registration cards they presented as identification allegedly were forged.

Escadon and Silva, who face charges of criminal simulation, said they paid $800 apiece for their forged documents, according to Solorzano.

That’s $700 more than the stabbing victim paid for his phony paper.

In the 12-hour period that began with Escadon and Silva’s arrest, officers with the Morristown Police Department arrested or cited 12 Hispanics.

None had a valid Social Security number and presumably entered the United States illegally.

The charges ranged from DUI to cocaine possession to carrying a loaded weapon while intoxicated to cocaine possession to failure to appear in court.

The Hamblen County Sheriff’s Department arrested one Hispanic, who like the others, didn’t have a valid Social Security number.

That subject, who was jailed for public intoxication, was found passed out drunk in a bathtub on the porch of a Springvale Road residence.

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