Mexican Man Who Used a Fraudulent Permanent Resident Card Sentenced to Jail Time and Supervised Release

A man who used a false identification document was sentenced today to nine days in prison.

Francisco Gonzalez-Matias, age 42, a citizen of Mexico illegally present in the United States and residing in Waterloo, Iowa, received the sentence after a November 22, 2021 guilty plea to one count of unlawful use of an identification document.

At the guilty plea, Gonzalez-Matias admitted he used a fraudulent Permanent Resident Card, also known as a “green card,” when he completed employment forms at a business in Cedar Falls in April 2021.  On the employment application, Gonzalez-Matias falsely claimed to be a lawful permanent resident of the United States.  The Alien Registration number on the green card was assigned to a male from Russia.  Gonzalez-Matias also used a fictitious Social Security Number on employment and tax forms at the business.  Social Security and Permanent Resident cards are documents used to prove identity and are prescribed by statute or regulation for entry into or as evidence of authorized stay or employment in the United States.  As an illegal alien, Gonzalez-Matias was not authorized to work in the United States.

Gonzalez-Matias was sentenced in Cedar Rapids by United States District Court Judge C.J. Williams.  Gonzalez-Matias was sentenced to nine days’ imprisonment.  He must also serve a three-year term of supervised release after the prison term.  There is no parole in the federal system.

Gonzalez-Matias was released following the hearing to begin serving his term of supervised release.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Daniel C. Tvedt and investigated by Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Enforcement and Removal Operations.

Court file information at https://ecf.iand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl. 

The case file number is 21-CR-2029.

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