A 72-year-old man who lived for decades under a false name in Mexico to avoid arrest pleaded guilty in San Diego federal court Thursday to passport and Social Security fraud.
Leslie Kay Peterson, who was living in La Paz, Mexico under the name Ronald Allen Steele, was arrested last November after trying to enter the United States from Mexico.
A criminal complaint filed in federal court states Peterson was convicted of first-degree robbery in Washington state and sentenced to 10 years of probation in 1977. After he allegedly violated his probation terms the following year for failing to pay a motel bill, he fled to Mexico, the complaint states.
While abroad, he applied for a passport at a U.S. Embassy in Honduras under the name Ronald Allen Steele and in the passport application, listed his actual brother as his emergency contact, but stated in the application that his emergency contact was a friend instead, according to the complaint.
He used that passport to enter the United States on 76 separate occasions over the past 10 years, the complaint states, citing U.S. Customs and Border Protection records.
Washington state withdrew its warrant for Peterson’s arrest in 2017, which a U.S. Department of State special agent wrote in the complaint may have led Peterson to apply for another passport in 2025 under his true name at the Chula Vista post office.
In addition to using a fraudulent passport, prosecutors say he applied for Retirement Insurance Benefits from the Social Security Administration under the Steele name and collected those benefits while living as a permanent resident in Mexico.
Peterson is due to be sentenced in April. Part of his sentence will include having to pay more than $130,000 in restitution to the Social Security Administration for money he was paid since 2018.
–City News Service
