An Arkansas man who has been using another man's identity for 24 years, racking up crimes and even serving prison time under the man's name, said Friday that California mobsters were to blame for his double life.
William Elvin Marshall, now 53, appeared Friday morning before U.S. District Judge Brian Miller to be sentenced on two charges to which he pleaded guilty Feb. 26: aggravated identity theft and making a false statement to a government agency. They were among eight charges he originally faced after being arrested in April 2015, after applying for disability benefits at a Social Security office in Conway three months earlier.
He applied for the benefits in the name of Terry Calvin Jones, whose name and Social Security number he had been using since 1992, according to a federal investigation triggered by the application.
An agent for the Social Security Administration's Office of Inspector General found that Marshall began using Jones' identity while living in the San Diego area. The agent, Charles Briscoe, said in a report that it appeared Marshall initially fled to California in 1986 to escape Arkansas charges of theft and forgery, but that he was returned to Arkansas in 1987 after being arrested in San Diego on a fugitive warrant.
Arrest records from California indicated that Marshall returned to that state after a two-month stint in an Arkansas prison. They showed misdemeanor convictions in 1989 and felony narcotics charges in 1991, for which he was sentenced to three years' probation.
But Marshall never reported to a probation officer in California, and 13 years later, when arrested back in Arkansas after trying to obtain the Social Security benefits, he was still considered a fugitive from California.
Despite arguments from Marshall's attorney, Latrece Gray of the federal public defender's office, that Marshall never intended to change his identity and has often tried to get his true identity back, Miller sentenced Marshall to five years in prison -- two years more than recommended by federal sentencing guidelines.
The judge indicated that he wasn't buying Marshall's claim that he had been forced by "the mob" to assume Jones' identity.
Marshall said that in the early 1990s, he owned Escondido Flowers, a flower shop in Escondido, Calif., when "the mob took over the flower shop" and started using it as a headquarters for drug trafficking between the United States and Mexico.
He said the mobsters eventually told him they were taking over his identity. He said they took him to the California Department of Motor Vehicles, got him a new identification card in the name of Jones -- whom he didn't know -- and told him to leave the state "or they'd kill me."
Marshall said he followed the mobsters' instructions, immediately assuming Jones' identity and leaving California, eventually making his way back to Arkansas.
For the next 20-some years, he said, he lived as though he were Jones.
He worked under Jones' name, paid taxes under Jones' name, and filed income tax returns under Jones' name, but said he never received the tax refunds. According to Briscoe, Marshall also used Jones' name to file for bankruptcy, obtain insurance claims and medical treatment, and seek other government benefits.
In response to a question from Miller, Marshall said he never actually believed he was Jones, but argued he was helpless to recover his own identity.
His mother, 72-year-old Eva McDonald, testified that although Marshall used the name Terry, "I never called him Terry. That's not his name."
McDonald backed her son's claims that he tried repeatedly to get his real identity back, saying she even helped him obtain a new birth certificate and Social Security card in his real name. But when he presented the official documents, authorities still wouldn't believe him, she said.
"He's my right-hand man," McDonald told the judge, asking him not to send Marshall to prison. She said she is raising three young children who are relatives, and "he takes care of the kids. He cooks and cleans, just helps me."
Gray also argued for no prison time, noting that Marshall suffers from many health problems and that a prison sentence could well be a death sentence.
Miller asked several questions about Marshall's story and shook his head in disbelief, then said, "He's been a fraud for 20-something years, and he's probably somebody I need to put away for a while so he doesn't defraud anyone else."
Gray noted that Marshall had never used his fake identity to get a credit card in Jones' name or run any kind of financial scam.
"Typically, identity theft is done for financial gain," she said. "He created a fraudulent identity to live."
Assistant U.S. Attorney Erin Siobhan O'Leary responded: "The fraud has been living under the name Terry Calvin Jones. It's an ongoing crime."
Miller agreed, saying, "It's not the name that's causing the problem; it's his actions. ... Every time they catch him, they catch someone they think is Terry Calvin Jones, but it's still him. ... This man is a criminal."
Looking directly at Marshall, Miller said, "The problem is not that you keep using the name Terry Calvin Jones. The problem is you keep committing crimes."
Gray interjected that Marshall's last crime, other than using Jones' name, was a methamphetamine conviction 15 years ago, when he had a "drug issue." She said that while "he in no way wants to pretend he's been a choirboy all this time," Marshall hasn't committed other crimes since that conviction.
O'Leary replied that he still obtained what wasn't his, but, "What he obtained that wasn't his was a fresh start."
She said the real Jones now has "false convictions on his record," although authorities are trying to sort through both men's histories and get the past convictions "untangled."
"Is there a real Terry Calvin Jones?" Miller asked, eyes wide.
O'Leary confirmed that her office has been in touch with Jones, who now lives in the state of Washington, and he "chose not to come here" or to write a victim impact letter to the court. Still, she said, Marshall's California warrant "is still active, and he's made a series of decisions that have impacted an innocent person. He has committed this crime for 23 years."
But, Gray argued, "He didn't spend 23 years evading the law. If so, he wasn't very good at it. He went to prison." She said he could never financially afford to return to California to clear up the warrant, but, "I've got an investigator now trying to help him get that resolved."
"He was not out here creating false accounts and stealing money," Gray argued. "He came home and is helping out his mother. His only crime is being Terry Calvin Jones. ... He's not a danger to anyone. He's been working and paying taxes."
While sentencing guidelines recommended about three years in prison, Miller granted O'Leary's motion for a variance, citing Marshall's status as a fugitive for more than 20 years, and imposed a five-year sentence. At the same time, he cited confusion about his sentencing options and encouraged Gray to appeal to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to clarify the situation.
Gray said Miller went too far above the recommended sentence of six to 12 months in prison for the false-statements charge, making the sentence "unreasonable and unconstitutional." The identity theft charge requires a two-year term to be served consecutively to whatever sentence is imposed on the false-statements charge.
Metro on 12/10/2016