Federal inmate pleads guilty in identity theft case

By TONY FYFFE
BSN Editor

PIKEVILLE — Sentencing is scheduled in August for a federal inmate who pleaded guilty in May to identity theft for having identifying information of thousands of military veterans. Juan Diego Paucar pleaded guilty May 19 to possession and transfer of means of identification and is set to be sentenced Aug. 27 in U.S. District Court in Pikeville. According to a plea agreement reached with prosecutors, Paucar obtained a collection of hundreds of means of identification, referred to as “profiles,” of U.S. military veterans while incarcerated at a federal prison in California. In May and June 2015, he transported the profiles to the United States Penitentiary in Martin County, where he solicited and purchased “what he believed to be approximately 2,500 additional profiles” for $500 from an unnamed individual, the agreement says. “The Defendant believed all the profiles he unlawfully obtained were from the Veteran’s Administration and that the means of identification belonged to other actual people, not to himself or to the unnamed individuals who helped him obtain these profiles,” the agreement says. Paucar used the profiles to create “fictitious addresses, phone numbers, e-mail addresses, and debit card accounts, then drafting false official documentation for income tax return filings based on these stolen profiles to generate fraudulent monetary returns to which he was not entitled,” according to the agreement. He also registered “fictitious companies online with the respective state authorities, creating alternate phone numbers online using ‘Univision.com’ for a selection of the profiles and directing monetary returns from false claims via bank wire to the unauthorized debit card accounts for his personal benefit and the benefit of others who were not entitled to them,” the agreement says. In addition, Paucar packaged and sent handwritten copies of at least 50 profiles to the U.S. Postal Service for dissemination to an accomplice he referred to as “Mr. Kevin Easy” and “Nephew,” the agreement says. He planned to cause debit cards to be mailed out for unauthorized accounts to fictitious addresses, the agreement says. Paucar recruited additional people outside the federal prison system by handwriting letters detailing his plan, according to the plea agreement. “In these letters, he specifically directed these individuals to complete tasks in furtherance of his scheme, and promised to pay a portion of the proceeds from the false claims in exchange for their assistance,” the agreement says. Paucar also selected 50 people from his profile collection that “he believed would still be alive and unlikely to take precautions with respect to their identifying information,” the agreement says. “The Defendant transcribed and transferred the profiles he selected into his letter to ‘Nephew’ so this prospective accomplice could begin creating fictitious accounts with those fifty profiles,” the agreement says. While he was incarcerated in the USP Big Sandy in September 2015, Paucar provided multiple pre-addressed stamped envelopes containing the handwritten letters to another inmate who was scheduled to be released, according to the agreement. “All of the written material was in the Defendant’s handwriting and some pages were signed by the Defendant,” the agreement says. “These letters, including the fifty profiles previously mentioned, were confiscated by BOP staff, who then recovered hundreds of additional profiles from the Defendant,” the agreement says. Paucar took the remaining profiles in his possession from USP Big Sandy to USP Marion in Williamson County, Ill., in 2016, the agreement says. “In total, the Defendant unlawfully obtained the unique means of identification of 1,364 other actual individuals, with the intent to commit the offenses” to which he pleaded guilty, the agreement says.