Jamaican National Residing in New York Sentenced for Passport Fraud

Deirdre M. Daly, United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, announced that LENWORTH STYLE, 44, a citizen of Jamaica last residing in the Bronx, New York, was sentenced today by Senior U.S. District Judge Alfred V. Covello in Hartford to approximately 16 months of imprisonment, time already served, for making a false statement in a U.S. passport application. A jury convicted STYLE of the offense on September 12, 2017.

According to the evidence at trial, on June 19, 2012, STYLE submitted an application for a U.S. passport, in the name of a legitimate U.S. citizen, at a U.S. Post Office in Bridgeport. Claiming to be this individual, STYLE presented a New York birth certificate and a fraudulent Connecticut Department of Motor Vehicles identity card in the name of the U.S. citizen, but bearing STYLE’s photograph. STYLE then signed the passport application under oath claiming to be the U.S. citizen.

Passport authorities flagged the application as possibly fraudulent and did not issue the passport. The U.S. citizen whose identity that STYLE used subsequently told law enforcement that he had never applied for a passport, and latent fingerprints on the fraudulent passport application matched STYLE’s fingerprints.

STYLE has been in federal custody since his arrest on April 25, 2016. He is subject to an immigration detainer and a detainer from the State of Rhode Island for unrelated criminal charges.

This case was investigated by the U.S. Department of State, Diplomatic Security Service, and was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Hal Chen and Nancy Gifford.