BANGOR, Maine (WABI) – Napoleon Gonzalez, 87, was sentenced in U.S. District Court Thursday after being convicted of identity theft, passport fraud, Social Security fraud, and mail fraud. The court ordered Gonzalez to serve five months of probation and repay over $175,000 to the federal government, but he will not serve time behind bars.
Gonzalez had been using the identity of his deceased brother, Guillermo Gonzalez, who passed away as an infant in 1939, for decades. Court records reveal that Gonzalez began the fraudulent activity in the mid-1960s, applying for a Social Security number for his brother in 1981. By 2001, he was receiving Social Security benefits for both himself and Guillermo. Additionally, he fraudulently obtained passports in Guillermo’s name.
The fraud was uncovered in 2020 when a Maine Bureau of Motor Vehicles investigator used facial recognition technology to compare Gonzalez’s driver’s license photo with one of his brother’s passport photos. This led to a federal investigation, with the Social Security Administration suspending the benefits in early 2020. Gonzalez then forged a letter to request the benefits be reinstated, which ultimately led to his indictment in July 2021.
Despite facing significant prison time (5 to 20 years) and substantial fines, Gonzalez’s attorneys requested leniency due to his age and argued discrepancies in how the fraud amount was calculated. The court’s decision on probation was based, in part, on the defense’s claims.
This case wasn’t Gonzalez’s first encounter with fraud. In 1985, a New York Daily News report revealed that Gonzalez had been arrested in Puerto Rico for faking his death by purchasing a man’s body, burying it as his own, and taking out a $300,000 life insurance policy. Though the outcome of that case was not fully disclosed, Gonzalez admitted in 2020 that he had served three years in prison for the fraud.
Gonzalez’s attorneys contested the reference to his previous crime during the trial, arguing that it was unfairly used against him in his current case.
