A 45-year-old man cut off his ankle monitor while on parole for a murder conviction in Nebraska and fled to Oregon, where he stole others’ identities and used them to apply for driver’s licenses and to try to buy guns.
U.S. District Judge Karin J. Immergut on Friday sentenced Johnny Lee Allen, 45, to four years and three months in federal prison.
Allen pleaded guilty to aggravated identity theft and making a false statement during the purchase of a firearm.
Allen had been convicted of second-degree murder and the use of a deadly weapon in Douglas County, Nebraska, in 1999. He was released 20 years later to a re-entry center and then to his home in late April 2019, where he cut off his ankle monitoring device and left the state, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Rachel Sowray.
Four months later, he used a stolen identity to obtain a Wyoming identification card. In late August 2019, he showed up at a DMV office in Gresham and applied for and obtained an Oregon identification card using the same stolen identity. Two months later, he used the same fraudulent identity card from Wyoming to get an Oregon driver’s license at a DMV office in Lincoln City, according to Sowray.
He tried but failed to buy two guns using a fraudulent ID because the person whose identity he lifted had a domestic violence conviction on his record, according to court documents.
In one case, Allen used fraudulent ID to try to buy a semi-automatic rifle, but he canceled the transaction when the background check was delayed, according to Sowray.
Allen also stole his brother’s identity to apply for a driver’s license at the Oregon DMV office in St. Helens, presenting a birth certificate. But he gave the DMV the same address that he had on the first fraudulent driver’s license he obtained in Oregon and his photo was flagged for potential fraud in the DMV database, according to Sowray. He was arrested in December 2022.
His sentence was jointly recommended by Sowray and Allen’s lawyer, Oregon Federal Public Defender Fidel Cassino-DuCloux.
— Maxine Bernstein
Email mbernstein@oregonian.com; 503-221-8212
Follow on Twitter @maxoregonian
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