Thread: 70 I-9s get man 10 years

August 26, 2009

Man gets 10 years on identity theft, drug charges

The defendant had employment eligibility documents for dozens of people when he was arrested.

By JON CASSIDY
The Orange County Register
Comments 20| Recommend 4

WESTMINSTER – A man sentenced today to 10 years in state prison for identity theft and drug violations was in possession of employment eligibility documents for dozens of people when he was arrested, court records show.

Tuan Quoc Nguyen, 30, pleaded guilty July 28 to five felonies and three misdemeanors relating to drug possession, possession with intent to sell, unauthorized use of personal identifying information, and receiving stolen property.

That stolen property included 70 original federal Employment Eligibility Verification forms, also known as I-9s, according to a search warrant served in June 2008.

Authorities were never able to determine whether the I-9 forms came from a human resources department at a company, a leak at a government agency, a document fencing ring, or another source.

Anyone hired at a job in the U.S. is required to fill out an I-9 form, which the employer keeps on file. The form includes information on the new hire's name, address, date of birth, maiden name, social security number, and in general, driver's license number or other identity documentation.

Employers are required to keep the form available for inspection by immigration, labor, or homeland security officials, but are not required to file it with an agency.

Spokeswomen for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and United States Citizenship and Immigration Services said earlier this year that they hadn't heard of the case and didn't know of any investigations into missing documents.

The investigating officer for the Garden Grove Police Department didn't know of any federal investigation, and didn't find the source of the documents.

"Mr. Nguyen refused to talk about the records," said Officer James Tucker.

Nguyen was one of five people arrested Dec. 17, 2007, after police found methamphetamine while responding to a complaint about late-night noise and foot traffic at a backyard studio room. Nguyen also had credit cards and personal checks not bearing his name when police searched him, according to the warrant.

According to the warrant, when police searched Nguyen's BMW, they found a blue, three-ring binder notebook filled with "seventy (70) US Department of Justice-I.N.S. Employment Eligibility Verification applications. All seventy (70) of these … applications were complete with the subjects' names, addresses, phone numbers, places of employment, social security numbers, driver's license numbers, relatives, photocopies of their social security card and driver's licenses, and many also had photocopies of their birth certificates. All of these appeared to be original applications that were completed, not photocopies."

Nguyen also had bank statements, credit card applications, E-bay invoices, and individual 401(k) reports, all in the names of other people, as well as four profiles of people that included all their identifying information, as well as bank account and credit card numbers.

Nguyen's guilty plea wasn't part of a deal with prosecutors.

Nguyen had four prior strikes on this record and faced a life sentence in this case but Judge Frances Munoz removed three of those strikes from his record over the prosecutor's objection.

"The court makes a finding that these are not violent or serious charges in this case," Munoz said.

Prosecutor Janice Chieffo of the Orange County District Attorney's Office said Nguyen never told authorities where he got the I-9 documents.

The District Attorney's office contacted many of the identity-theft victims to alert them to today sentencing, she said.

Nothing new was learned through correspondence with the victims about how Nguyen got hold of their information, Chieffo said.

Contact the writer: jcassidy@ocregister.com or 714-704-3782

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/nguy ... s-security

Ten years is all? He will be 40 when he gets out, and ready to start all over again.