Received Additional Prison Time for Violating Supervised Release From Prior Document Fraud Conviction
A Guatemalan man who illegally returned to the United States after having been deported following a felony conviction was sentenced today to 22 months’ in federal prison.
Benjamin Aguilar-Ramirez, age 35, a citizen of Guatemala illegally present in the United States and residing in Waterloo, Iowa, received the prison term after a Jan. 11, 2018, guilty plea to one count of illegal reentry into the United States following a felony conviction.
At the guilty plea, Aguilar-Ramirez, an illegal alien, admitted that he was deported from the United States on May 5, 2017, and that he illegally reentered the United States without the permission of the United States government. Aguilar-Ramirez was previously convicted on March 8, 2017, in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Iowa of one count of unlawful use of identification documents and one count of misuse of a social security number, both felonies. On the document fraud convictions, Aguilar-Ramirez was sentenced to 114 days’ imprisonment and a three-year term of supervised release. On Nov. 13, 2017, Aguilar-Ramirez was found by immigration officers at the Black Hawk County Jail in Waterloo, Iowa, following his arrest for violating a State of Iowa No Contact Order.
Aguilar-Ramirez was sentenced in Cedar Rapids by United States District Court Judge Linda R. Reade. Aguilar-Ramirez was sentenced to 16 months’ imprisonment on the illegal reentry conviction. Aguilar-Ramirez was also sentenced to 6 months’ imprisonment for violating the terms of his supervised release on the document fraud convictions. The terms of imprisonment are to be served consecutively. He must also serve a three-year term of supervised release on the illegal reentry conviction after the prison term. There is no parole in the federal system.
Aguilar-Ramirez is being held in the United States Marshal’s custody until he can be transported to a federal prison.
The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Daniel C. Tvedt and investigated by the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Enforcement and Removal Operations.
Court file information at https://ecf.iand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl.
The case file numbers are 16-CR-2055-LRR and 17-CR-2089-LRR.
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Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
