Dominican Man Pleads Guilty to Identity Theft

0:00A 47-year-old Dominican Republic citizen living illegally in Waterbury just pleaded guilty in Hartford Federal Court to passport fraud and aggravated identity theft. Earlier this week, U.S. Attorney David Sullivan announced the plea after a routine check at the Waterbury DMV back in June 2025 flagged. The issue, the guy, Jose Luis Rodriguez, have been using a stolen Connecticut driver's license issued way back in 2001 and renewed several times. Investigators dubbed deeper and found Rodriguez had fully assumed the victim's identity, complete with matching FBI fingerprints in Waterbury police, arrest photos where he posed as the real person, that let him snag a U.S. passport in March 2020 and use it for travel and ID without a hitch. He got busted on December 30, 2025, when he tried submitting that fake passport to the State Department, claiming he was a U.S. Now he's locked up awaiting sentencing on July 27, facing up to 10 years behind bars.

1:03This case shows how sharp DMV checks and federal probes are shutting down identity thieves one by one, keeping real folks safe from long-term fraud. That's your update from Hartford News Today, powered by AI.