Guatemalan man in Missouri pleads guilty to identity theft that made national news
A Guatemalan man living in St. Joseph pleaded guilty in federal court Wednesday for using a Minnesota man’s identity for over a decade to work in the United States, according to a press release from a spokesperson at the U.S. Department of Justice’s office for the Western District of Missouri.
Romeo Perez-Bravo, 43, pleaded guilty to one count of aggravated identity theft and one count of illegal re-entry by a foreign national previously convicted of a felony, according to the press release from Davis Ketchmark, spokesperson for U.S. Attorney R. Matthew Price.
Perez-Bravo used the victim’s name and social security number to gain employment at businesses in St. Joseph from at least 2009 up to 2025, according to the press release. Their story, told from the perspective of both Perez-Bravo and the identity theft victim, was featured in The New York Times last November.
The victim discovered their identity had been stolen after receiving tax bills from the Internal Revenue Service for unpaid income taxes, according to the press release.
“Perez-Bravo is a citizen of Guatemala and does not have permission to enter, remain, or work in the United States legally,” Ketchmark said. “Records indicate he has been deported three separate times, with at least one deportation occurring after he was convicted of a felony.”
Perez-Bravo will face a mandatory two years in federal prison for the count of aggravated identity theft and up to 10 years for illegal reentry, according to the press release.
Making national news
Perez-Bravo stole the identity of Dan Kluver, a 42-year-old factory worker from Olivia, Minnesota, according to the article published last November by The New York Times.
Before Perez-Bravo’s arrest, Kluver had been sending the IRS $150 a month in an attempt to pay off a debt that wasn’t his own, the article said. He was even named in a wrongful death lawsuit in Missouri after the serpentine belt on Perez-Bravo’s car broke, causing him to lose control at a red light, where he allegedly struck and killed a 68-year-old man.
Kluver’s wife, Kristy, a nurse practitioner, told The New York Times she often treated patients at the hospital where she worked whose IDs didn’t match their medical records.
“I’m so tired of dealing with a broken system,” Kristy told the New York Times.
Perez-Bravo said he initially entered the United States when he was 16 in an attempt to earn money for his family, The New York Times reported. He hiked out of Guatemala, rode on top of a freight train in Mexico for three weeks and “nearly drowned in the Rio Grande” before taking a Greyhound to the Midwest.
All he wanted was to work, Perez-Bravo told The New York Times.
By the time he was living in St. Joseph, Perez-Bravo had been deported three times, the newspaper reported. His neighbors described him as a man connected to the city in “deep ways.” In court, his boss at the dog food factory he worked at wrote a letter testifying to his work ethic. A local pastor was willing to pay his bond.
He was involved in his local church and had children in the local school system, according to The New York Times. Neighbors said Perez-Bravo and his family were kind, helpful people.
“He sounds like me — a good worker,” Perez-Bravo said of Kluver in The New York Times article. “I don’t want to mess things up for anyone. I just want to work. It makes me crazy with no job. How many hours can I sit and pray?”
A sentencing hearing has not been scheduled.
