SALEM — Police still aren't sure who he is, but a man who's been calling himself David Perez for the past decade will be spending some time in jail after a jury found him guilty of using a false name.
Perez was sentenced to two years in jail yesterday by Salem District Court Judge Dunbar Livingston. Perez will have to serve at least one year before he is released on probation for two more years.
Livingston based his sentence in part on Perez's "lengthy and very serious record" — a record that started abruptly in 1999 with firearms and drug charges and continued over the following eight years.
And that was a problem for a Boston man named David Velez Perez, whose identity and Social Security number Perez had allegedly swiped during a burglary in the late 1990s. Ever since, Velez Perez told Salem police, he has been hounded by law enforcement authorities over crimes allegedly committed by Perez.
In January 2007, Velez Perez, 37, showed up at Salem District Court with his wife and kids, trying to explain that once again he'd been mistaken for the suspect, this time on a domestic abuse charge.
Salem police began investigating and charged Perez, who was living on Washington Street in Salem, with identity fraud, giving police a false name during arrest, and using a false name and Social Security number to obtain a driver's license.
Prosecutor Lisa Core told the jury that Perez's story "doesn't add up."
For example, he has used a birth certificate showing he was born in the Bronx, N.Y., but his girlfriend and others testified that he is from Puerto Rico — even though he has a Dominican Republic flag tattooed on his arm.
And when police asked him his mother's maiden name — which, according to the birth certificate he had been using, was the same as his own name, Perez — he could not recall that fact.
Defense lawyer William "Jake" Megowen insisted his client is who he says he is and questioned why the other David Velez Perez did not show up to testify.
"At the end of the day, there are two individuals, and they would claim to be using the same Social Security number and the same date of birth," Megowen said.
During sentencing, Megowen acknowledged that his client had been convicted of using the phony name and information to get a license but said he had driven very little and had not been involved in any serious accident.
After he completes his sentence, Perez could be facing more problems — Salem police Detective John Doyle has already been in touch with Immigration and Customs Enforcement in an effort to determine whether Perez is in the country illegally.
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