You really thought that was gonna fly?
Airline worker ‘stole’ dead kid’s name
A Brazilian man working as a flight attendant for United Airlines used the name of a dead Atlanta boy for two decades, federal prosecutors said.
Ricardo Cesar Guedes, 49, used the identity of William Ericson Ladd, who died at age 4 in a Washington state car crash in 1979, to apply for a US passport in 1998 and renew it six times through 2020, according to a federal complaint.
Guedes, a native of Sao Paulo, then used the boy’s name while getting married and taking out a mortgage in Houston, according to the complaint, which lists his occupation as a flight attendant for United.
There is no record of him applying or receiving US citizenship through naturalization, according to the complaint.
Investigators allegedly uncovered Guedes’ real identity by comparing fingerprints he submitted for his Brazilian national identity document in the 1990s.
After his passport was flagged for “various fraud indicators,” he was arrested at Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport in September when he entered a secure crew-member area while using the boy’s identity, the complaint states.
Ladd’s mother, Debra Lynn Hays, confirmed her son’s death to State Department investigators last July, according to the complaint charging Guedes with aggravated identity theft, making false statements on a passport application and other counts.
Hays did not recognize the Social
Security number that was issued to Guedes in North Carolina in the name of Ladd some 17 years after his death, the complaint states.
Guedes allegedly took 40 trips for United in 2020 while using Ladd’s name. He remains detained pending trial, the Houston Chronicle reported.
A United spokesperson confirmed Guedes’ prior employment, but said he was no longer working for the company, NBC News reported Tuesday.
“United has a thorough verification process for new employees that complies with federal legal requirements,” the spokesperson said.
An attorney for Guedes declined to comment to NBC on the allegations Tuesday.
The Diplomatic Security Service, the law-enforcement arm of the department, investigates roughly 5,000 passport fraud cases per year, according to the Chronicle.
Guedes had no other criminal record, the newspaper reported.
When confronted by federal investigators in September, he identified himself as Ladd before agents showed him a death certificate for the boy and a photo of his gravesite in Alabama.
Guedes then signed a fingerprint sheet using his real name, the newspaper reported.
“I had a dream, and the dream is over,” Guedes reportedly told the arresting agents.
“Now I have to face reality.”