Opinion ID: 203760
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Original and Superseding Indictments

Text: On December 6, 2006, a federal grand jury returned a four-count indictment (the original indictment) charging Vidal with misrepresentation of a social security account number, in violation of 42 U.S.C. § 408(a)(7)(B) (Count One); false representation of U.S. citizenship in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 911 (Count Two); aggravated identity theft in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1028A (Count Three); and false statements on a passport application, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1542 (Count Four). All the counts charged derived from the events that took place on or about July 2002 when Vidal first submitted a U.S. passport application under his assumed name and social security number. On April 13, 2007, Vidal moved to dismiss the aggravated identity theft count charged in the original indictment, on the ground that the aggravated identity theft statute, 18 U.S.C. § 1028A, was not enacted until 2004, and thus, its application to Vidal's 2002 conduct violated the Ex Post Facto Clause of the U.S. Constitution. Recognizing its error, the government then superseded the original indictment. In the superseding indictment, the government changed the factual basis for the aggravated identity theft charge, renumbered as Count Four, to offense conduct that took place in 2006. Specifically, the § 1028A count was amended so as to be based on Vidal's use of false information to obtain a copy of a United States birth certificate in the name Pedro Luis Rodríguez, which Vidal had requested from Puerto Rican authorities in 2006, while he was incarcerated. Notably, the alteration of the offense conduct time frame for the aggravated identity theft count, from events that occurred in 2002 to events that occurred in 2006, was the only change made to the original indictment by the superseding indictment. The factual basis for the additional counts remained Vidal's conduct in July 2002 and no new charges based on conduct occurring in 2006 were brought. [1] Vidal ultimately pled guilty to all four counts charged.