Officials: Sailor used fake name for 22 years - Navy News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Navy Times

Officials: Sailor used fake name for 22 years

State Department investigators say Chief Engineman (SW) Arturo Puente, assigned to Naval Station Mayport, Fla., has used a false name for the last 22 years, court papers show.

The 41-year-old sailor was charged in federal court as “John Doe, AKA Arturo Puente” and was accused of making false statements when he applied for a diplomatic passport in November 2006 while working at the U.S. Embassy in Panama, according to an affidavit filed in federal court in the District of Columbia.

A recent State Department investigation found that the real Arturo Puente died at the age of 11 in Oregon in April 1980.

In his passport application, the chief had listed the real Arturo Puente’s parents as his own, according to the affidavit filed by Mark Baird, a State Department special agent who investigates passport fraud.

Puente’s mother, Carolina Medina, told investigators that the birth certificate issued to her dead son was stolen during a car theft shortly before the child’s death, court records show.

The federal judge ordered the case sealed, but the State Department provided Navy Times with a copy of the affidavit.

Puente is currently assigned to the cruiser Hue City. He has spent 12 of his 22 years in the Navy assigned to units in Panama, including about six years at the attaché office at the embassy there and also at a small craft training school in the early 1990s.

He was promoted to chief in 2004 while serving in Panama, Navy records show.

The man told the Florida Times-Union newspaper that he is “confused” by the charges and that he has returned to work at the Navy base. He acknowledged to the newspaper that his name is not Puente and signed court documents in Florida using the name Guillermo Salinas Guzman.

Navy officials declined to comment.

"As this case is currently under investigation, it would be inappropriate to discuss further details at this time," said Lt. j.g. Laura Stegherr, a Navy spokeswoman at the Pentagon.