Jamaican National Sentenced to Prison to Passport Fraud

Deirdre M. Daly, United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, announced that MARK ANTHONY GOULDBOURNE, 42, of Hartford, Conn. and Brooklyn, N.Y., was sentenced today by U.S. District Judge Robert N. Chatigny in Hartford to nine months of imprisonment for making a false statement in a passport application.

According to court documents and statements made in court, GOULDBOURNE is a native and citizen of Jamaica.  In March 2011, he submitted an application for a U.S. passport, in the name of his brother, at a U.S. Post Office in Hartford.  Claiming to be his brother, who is a U.S. citizen, GOULDBOURNE presented to the passport acceptance agent a New York birth certificate and a Pennsylvania identity card, and then signed the passport application under oath.  Passport authorities flagged the application as possibly fraudulent and did not issue the passport.

In May 2015, law enforcement determined that GOULDBOURNE was an inmate at Hartford Correctional Center under the same identity used in the fraudulent passport application. In an interview with law enforcement on May 7, 2015, GOULDBOURNE admitted that he had submitted the fraudulent passport application in March 2011, and that he had obtained the Pennsylvania identity card in his brother’s name.

On December 15, 2015, GOULDBOURNE waived indictment and pleaded guilty to one count of making a false statement in a passport application.  He will be subject to deportation proceedings upon the completion of his federal sentence.

The case was investigated by the U.S. Department of State, Diplomatic Security Service.  The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Hal Chen.