Posted on 02/10/2006 10:30:35 AM PST by SmithL
Behzad Mofrad stole the wrong name.
Of all the identities he could have chosen to steal, he chose that of Kevin Andrew Collins, a child abducted from a San Francisco street corner 22 years ago today.
The name meant nothing to Mofrad, who had no idea Collins' abduction drew national attention and the boy was among the first whose picture would appear on milk cartons across the country.
"He really made a serious error in choosing this name," said Thomas Depenbrock, regional special agent in charge of the State Department's Diplomatic Security Service, which investigates passport fraud.
Mofrad, a 40-year-old man with addresses in Pinole and San Ramon, was sentenced to 33 months in federal prison Thursday after pleading guilty in November to a passport fraud scheme. He admitted taking Collins' name from an online directory of missing children, investigators said, and using it to try to establish a bogus identity.
"I think it's despicable that this guy saw my son's name on a Web site and figured that was 22 years ago, so nobody cares anymore," said Ann Collins, Kevin's mother. "I guess he didn't realize my son was on the cover of Newsweek (in 1984) and that thankfully some people remember him."
According to U.S. District Court records, Mofrad used Collins' name on Sept. 2 to apply for a passport using his own photo. He also used Collins' date of birth, hometown, parents' names and Social Security number.
A quick-thinking State Department clerk who remembered the Collins abduction became suspicious
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Sooner or later, we'll learn of other dim-witted, would-be terrorists who chose names like "D.B. Cooper", and were likewise, picked up for "questioning".
And on a related subject, how is it that when Nazi spies were caught on American soil during World War II (I'm thinking of the teams of German saboteurs who were brought to the East Coast via U-Boat, one team landed near Jacksonville Florida, the other in New Jersey), they were tried and convicted in a secret court (as I recall the story) and summarily executed.
Why are we bothering to keep scumbags who are no different than those Nazi spies alive and relatively comfortable with three hots and a cot? When do THEY get executed?
Or do we need the ACLU's approval for that?
Just a thought.
Exactly what I thought. If he was native born, why the need for a new identity? I think there is more to this story one way or the other.
Just when we think the scum can sink no lower.
He might have a DUI. This is one of the side effects of issuing licenses to illegal aliens.
The article didn't go into his status here in the U.S. There was this, which shows that he's not exactly an honest person:
Federal prosecutors already were familiar with Mofrad, who was free on bail in a pending computer fraud case when he applied for the passport. Mofrad pleaded guilty to charges in the two cases on Nov. 14.
Mofrad apologized to Collins' mother, who attended the hearing in Oakland with relatives. U.S. District Judge Saundra Brown Armstrong ordered Mofrad to pay nearly $700,000 in restitution and court costs.
6 of the 8 captured sabotuers were executed. The other two (who had cooperated with authorities) were sent back to Germany after the war.
So why do crooks get 30 years for passport fraud but probation for stealing an identity and opening credit card accounts?
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