Indianapolis man sentenced to prison for Social Security and passport fraud

INDIANAPOLIS - United States Attorney, Josh J. Minkler, announced today that Adam Wilson, 37, Indianapolis, was sentenced to eight months in prison by U.S. District Judge Tanya W. Pratt following his guilty plea to intentionally furnishing false information to social security administration and false statement in application for a passport.  Wilson also must pay a fine of $2,000.  This case was the result of a joint investigation by the Social Security Administration’s Office of the Inspector General, the U.S. Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations. 

Wilson pled guilty to the felony offenses in U.S. District Court. In 2007, Wilson entered the United States as a Cuban refugee.  In July 2012, Wilson became a naturalized citizen of the United States. 

After arriving in the United States in 2007, Wilson applied for and obtained a social security number.  In August 2012, Wilson went into the Social Security Administration (“SSA”) in Anderson, Indiana, and applied for a new social security number, stating that he had never had a prior social security number while listing a fictitious name as his father’s name. As a result, the Social Security Administration issued Wilson a new social security number.  Federal agents later interviewed Wilson and seized the fraudulent second social security card.  Despite relinquishing the card, Wilson visited the SSA seven more times in attempt to obtain a new card with the fraudulent social security number. 

In July 2012, Wilson applied for a United States passport using an address where he did not live and listing his father’s name as an individual who was not his father.  In October 2012, Wilson applied for a replacement passport and again listed another individual’s name as his father. 

While waiting for the disposition of this case, Wilson violated his pretrial release conditions.  Specifically, Wilson requested and obtained permission from the Probation Office to travel to Florida to visit his relatives for Thanksgiving.  Instead of abiding by these preapproved plans, Wilson left the country and was located by immigration officials in Houston, Texas.  There, Wilson presented to them a Cuban passport after having arrived on a flight from Cancun, Mexico.  The Probation Office neither approved Wilson’s international travel nor had knowledge of Wilson’s Cuban passport.

According to Assistant U.S. Attorney Kyle M. Sawa, who prosecuted the case for the government, Judge Pratt also imposed two years of supervised release after Wilson’s prison sentence is completed.