from today's Argus Leader (local newspaper):



Federal charges filed against suspect in fatal school bus crash
By The Associated Press
February 29, 2008

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) – Federal prosecutors filed identity theft charges today against the woman accused in a school bus crash that killed four students.

Olga Marina Franco del Cid, 24, of Minneota, was already charged in state court with four counts of criminal vehicular homicide.

The new charges accuse her of giving authorities a false name and Social Security number after the crash Feb. 19, when four students were killed when a van she drove crashed into their school bus near Cottonwood in southwestern Minnesota. She was charged with two counts of aggravated identity theft and two counts of false representation of a Social Security number.

Prosecutors filed the same federal charges against her live-in boyfriend, Francisco Sangabriel-Mendoza, 29, also of Minneota, who prosecutors say was the registered owner of the van. A warrant was issued for his arrest, and authorities asked anyone who knows his whereabouts to call the Immigration and Customs Enforcement toll free hot line at 1-866-347-2423.

Franco’s attorney, Manuel Guerrero of St. Paul, declined comment on the new charges, saying he hadn’t seen them. Franco did not immediately return a message left at the Lyon County Jail in Marshall.

Both of Franco and Sangabriel-Mendoza face maximum potential penalties of five years in prison on each false representation count and two years on each identity theft count.

Right after the crash, Franco identified herself as Alianiss Nunez-Morales. But immigration investigators found the real Nunez-Morales in Connecticut. She told them her purse and identification documents were stolen more than six months ago when she was living in Puerto Rico, according to an ICE affidavit.

The affidavit alleges Franco used Nunez-Morales’ Social Security number to obtain a Minnesota identification card, an ID that is not a driver’s license. Franco allegedly was not licensed to drive in Minnesota. She also allegedly gave the Social Security number at two Minnesota companies where she worked.


http://www.argusleader.com/apps/pbcs.dl ... S/80229051



A warrant was issued for his arrest, and authorities asked anyone who knows his whereabouts to call the Immigration and Customs Enforcement toll free hot line at 1-866-347-2423.