Dominican Man Pleads Guilty To Misrepresenting A Social Security Number

          CONCORD, NEW HAMPSHIRE –United States Attorney Emily Gray Rice announced that Sergio Yeremi Martinez-Mejia, of the Dominican Republic, pleaded guilty to falsely claiming that he was assigned a social security number that was in fact assigned to another person. 

          On March 24, 2015, Immigration and Customs Enforcement was notified that the defendant was suspected of being a foreign national illegally in the United States.  On March 23, 2015, the defendant told the Portsmouth Police Department that he was a Puerto Rican U.S. citizen and provided the police a certain social security number that he claimed was his.

          On March 24, 2015, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement Deportation Officer interviewed Martinez-Mejia.  The defendant claimed that he was born in Puerto Rico and provided the officer with a social security number not in fact assigned to Martinez-Mejia.

          The Deportation Officer submitted the defendant’s fingerprints to the Department of Homeland Security and to the FBI.  Each agency returned a match for the defendant, Sergio Yeremi Martinez-Mejia, who had, on July 11, 2011, been ordered deported from the United States to the Dominican Republic.  Records of the U.S. Social Security Administration revealed that neither of the numbers the defendant claimed were assigned to him actually had been assigned to him.

          Martinez-Mejia will be sentenced at 11:30 AM on August 9, 2016, and will be deported after serving his sentence.

          The case was investigated by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Portsmouth Police Department. Assistant U.S. Attorney Alfred Rubega is prosecuting this case.

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