Braintree Man admits the use of dead adolescent identity to become a Melrose firefighter

A Braintree man used the identity of a dead teenager for at least six years to attend the State Fire Fight Academy and work as a firefighter in Melrose, federal prosecutors said Wednesday.

Truong Nguyen, 40, declared himself guilty in the United States District Court in Boston of passport fraud and aggravated identity theft derived from the use of the name of the deceased adolescent to obtain a birth certificate, a social security card and a massachusetts driver’s license in 2018, 2019, 2023, the authorities said.

“From November 2023 to January 2024, the DOE used the identity of the deceased victim to attend the Massachusetts fire fighting academy,” federal prosecutors said in a statement. “After graduating, the defendant began using with the Melrose Fire Department on behalf of the victim, where he worked until his arrest in May 2024.”

When he graduated from the Fire Academy, Nguyen posed with an ax in front of a fire truck orIt is not the name of Henry Huang, The Globe reported. In judicial documents, the deceased adolescent was identified only as HH.

In 2018, the Motorized Vehicle Registry investigated it for fraud after the facial recognition software indicated that it was using two names to obtain a driver’s license, prosecutors said.

But using A birth certificate and a social security card issued under the identity of the deceased victim, convinced the RMV that she was the dead teenager, prosecutors said.

Nguyen’s masquerade was discovered in 2023 when he requested a passport using false identity, prosecutors said. Passport researchers located the child’s death certificate and then notified the identity theft police, prosecutors said.

Nguyen was arrested by federal authorities in 2024. In Court on Tuesday, he acknowledged that his name is Truong Nguyen, prosecutors said.

Nguyen arrived in the United States from Vietnam in 1979 and obtained a green card as a permanent legal resident, prosecutors said. But he was ordered in 1995 after being convicted of theft in 1991, prosecutors said.

Under his own name, Nguyen was arrested for allegedly stealing $ 46,000 from the Norwell Fire Union in 2010, according to federal prosecutors.

That same year, Nguyen joined the 19 other firefighters from Norwell to sue the city for unpaid wages, according to records. He wrote that he was hired as Norwell firefighter in 2004, as shown in the judicial records.

The Judge of the United States District Court, Denise J. Casper, established the sentence for June 12.

You can contact John R. Ellement at [email protected]. Follow it @Jrebosglobe.