XENIA — A man involved in a fake ID production operation that worked in Greene County was sentenced to serve six years in prison Wednesday.
Just before being sentenced in Greene County Common Pleas Court, Jesus Villasenor, 44, apologized for his actions.
“I am grateful for the United States and everything that they have given me,” he said through a court interpreter. “I am very sorry for what I did. If I could go back in time, I would never have done it. I ask the United States to forgive me.”
According to criminal indictments and information from the Beavercreek Police Department and the Greene County ACE Task Force, Villasenor and his co-defendant, Eloy Martinez, 50, were originally charged because of an “illicit business” in which the two allegedly created and sold false social security cards, immigrant identifications and driver’s licenses from six states.
According to police, Martinez sold the false documents after Villasenor created them. Beavercreek Police Captain Eric Grile previously told this newspaper that fake identifications from the operation were sold in Greene County.
During previous hearings, both men acknowledged to the court that they were not United States citizens.
During the sentencing hearing Wednesday, Villasenor’s attorney, Griff Nowicki, said his client had no underlying malicious intent in the crimes, indicated that his client needed money at the time of the crimes and said that the case had “technically no victims.”
In response, assistant prosecuting attorney David Hayes said, “The very nature of their crime is to help others break the law as well and regardless of his motivation for doing so, the seriousness of these crimes and their potential for mischief and potential loss to the state in the form of illegally obtained benefits cannot be overstated.
“Mr. Nowicki said that there are no victims,” he added. “That might be true under the facts of this case, your honor, but with regards to the conduct that he and Eloy Martinez were committing, you are a potential victim, I am a potential victim, every taxpayer in this community is a potential victim.”
Hayes asked for a 10-year prison sentence on behalf of the state just before Judge Michael Buckwalter handed down the six-year sentence.
Villasenor pleaded guilty in May to an engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity charge, as well as five money laundering charges and agreed to forfeit some of the items considered to be used in or proceeds of the operation, including computers, a printer, ID cards and other items. The other 24 counts Villasenor was indicted on in December 2015 were dismissed as part of a plea agreement.
Martinez pleaded guilty to six felony charges related to the operation earlier this month and is scheduled to be sentenced Aug. 11. He faces a prison sentence of up to 23 years.
