86-year-old used dead brother’s identity since 1965, collected his benefits, feds say
A Maine man lived under two identities for more than half a century — his own and the identity of his brother who died as a baby in 1939, federal prosecutors said.
Napoleon Gonzalez, 86, of Etna, assumed his brother’s identity in 1965, according to court documents and federal prosecutors, who said he obtained passports in his brother’s name and was issued a Social Security number for him in 1981.
Eventually, Gonzalez began collecting Social Security retirement benefits for himself and for his brother until March 2020, when his scheme surfaced with the help of facial identification technology, prosecutors said. It’s unclear how much in retirement benefits he collected under both names.
In January 2020, a detective with Maine’s Bureau of Motor Vehicles Division of Enforcement, Anti-Theft, and Regulations reviewed records with the technology and discovered the man’s face on two separate state ID cards — one issued in his name and another in his brother’s name, according to a trial brief filed in federal court.
A jury found Gonzalez guilty of one count of identity theft, two counts of passport fraud, two counts of Social Security fraud and one count of mail fraud on Aug. 18, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Maine announced in an Aug. 21 news release.
Criminal justice attorney Harris A. Mattson, who represents Gonzalez, told McClatchy News in a statement on Aug. 23 that they plan on filing an appeal in the case.
“This was an unusual case that presented some interesting legal issues that we intend to raise on appeal,” Mattson said. “Our view is that the evidence was not sufficient to prove at least one element in every count of the indictment.”
Man says Air Force told him to assume brother’s identity
On January 23, 2020, when detectives interviewed Gonzalez, he introduced himself using his true name and said he used his brother’s identity at the direction of the U.S. Air Force’s Office of Special Investigations, the trial brief says.
He told detectives he worked for the U.S. Air Force in the 1960s and was told to assume his brother’s name for an undercover investigation, according to the trial brief.
An Air Force officer told investigators in a letter “while it was difficult to say with certainty that Gonzalez was never affiliated with the OSI given the timeframe of the records request (going back to the 1960s), no such record was located,” the trial brief says.
The officer wrote that OSI’s policies and procedures prohibit confidential sources from using the identity of another person, according to the trial brief.
Man faked his death, court docs say
In addition to existing birth and death records for Gonzalez’s brother, there are also existing birth and death records for him, the trial brief says.
Gonzalez is accused of faking his own death in November 1984 as part of an insurance fraud scheme, which he told investigators he previously served three years in jail for, according to the trial brief.
He used his brother’s identity “to falsely identify the body of another person, who had died in an automobile accident, as that of (his own identity),” the trial brief says.
Gonzalez told investigators he paid to use another person’s body and, while posing as his brother, identified the body as himself in an attempt to claim a life insurance policy, according to the trial brief.
In 2010, the Social Security Administration’s Office of the Inspector General learned of Gonzalez’s death record, the trial brief says.
As a result, benefit payments under his real name were temporarily suspended until he signed a sworn statement with his real name — resulting in the reinstatement of benefits, according to the trial brief.
Benefits suspended under his brother’s name
In March 2020, after prosecutors said facial recognition technology revealed Gonzalez used two state ID cards, investigators requested that retirement benefits paid to his brother be suspended, according to prosecutors and the trial brief.
This led to him sending a letter to the Social Security Administration — signed under his brother’s name — asking why the benefits were suspended, the release said.
In the letter, he said he was “locked in his apartment, unable to drive and dependent on neighbors to obtain food and other items” because of the COVID-19 pandemic, prosecutors said.
He is facing up to decades in prison, according to prosecutors.
The count of mail fraud could result in the highest potential prison sentence of up to 20 years, the release said. Court records don’t list a sentencing date for him as of the morning of Aug. 23.
This story was originally published August 23, 2023 at 8:58 AM with the headline "86-year-old used dead brother’s identity since 1965, collected his benefits, feds say."
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