Napoleon Gonzalez, 86, stole his brother's identity in 1965 and was finally caught and convicted of wire fraud more than 55 years later. His sibling had died as an infant and Gonzales spent most of his life claiming benefits under both names–a habit that finally caught up to him when facial recognition software "matched the same face to two different identities."
A U.S. District Court jury in Bangor on Friday convicted him of mail fraud, Social Security fraud, passport fraud and identity theft. Mail fraud carries the greatest potential prison sentence, up to 20 years.
His attorney said Tuesday that he intends to appeal and will seek to keep Gonzalez out of prison until the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issues a ruling.
When they say "facial recognition software" the mind wanders to all sorts of frighting surveillance-dystopia things, but it also seems quite possible he just used the exact same photo and was caught by a simple anti-fraud checksum script looking for duplicated faces and stock art. According to the AP they caught him once before but he somehow not only got out of it but started receiving his brother's benefits again, so we are definitely on the dullest edge of Hanlon's Razor here.
