A Guatemalan national who stole the identity of a Texas man to obtain a Maine identification card, collect welfare benefits and get a job in Maine was sentenced Monday in U.S. District Court in Portland to 16 months in federal prison.

Sergio Suhum, 26, had been living in Auburn and Brunswick since 2008 under the name of Edgar Estrada, a Hidalgo County, Texas, man.

Suhum pleaded guilty on Nov. 25, 2013, before U.S. District Judge D. Brock Hornby to 10 of the charges against him – five counts of Social Security fraud, two counts of immigration document fraud and three counts of false personation of a U.S. citizen.

The judge also ordered Suhum to pay $1,354 in restitution.

Suhum was acquitted by a jury in February of aggravated identity theft.

Estrada was unaware that his identity had been stolen until he received letters from the Texas Department of Public Safety that someone using his name had been arrested in Maine, according to an affidavit filed in U.S. District Court in support of Suhum’s arrest in October.

Suhum first used Estrada’s name, date of birth, and Social Security number to apply in 2008 for a Maine state ID card and then in 2010 for a Maine driver’s license, an agent for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, David Pawson, said in the affidavit.

Authorities began to put together the case after Suhum was arrested twice in 2012, once on April 14 in Topsham and again on Sept. 29 in Auburn, on charges of operating a motor vehicle under the influence of alcohol, according to court records.

Federal agents began using an undercover source in October 2012 to get more information on the man they later identified as Suhum. They tracked him to his workplace at Moark Farm in Turner and to his most recent residence in Brunswick, court records show.


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