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Immigration News Flash

May 6, 2009

Supreme Court on Identity Theft

Flores-Figueroa v. United States, 5/04/09
In the instant case, Flores presented a counterfeit Social Security and alien registration card which contained his real name, but used numbers that belonged to other people. The court closely reviewed the definition of "knowingly" contained in the Aggravated Identify Theft Statute as well as the distinction between "identify theft" and "identify fraud" and held unanimously that in order to convict under the statute (which imposes a mandatory consecutive two-year prison term), it must prove that the individual knew that the identification being used, possessed or transferred belonged to another person.