SOMERVILLE — A Dominican illegal immigrant in Somerville spent 14 years living as someone else — pulling a Massachusetts prison sentence, $75,727 in taxpayer benefits, nine state IDs and a United States passport under the name, Social Security number and birthday of a real American man, federal prosecutors say.

Mario Jose Baez Romero, 45, a citizen of the Dominican Republic, was charged in U.S. District Court in Boston on June 12 with one count of false statement in application and use of passport and one count of aggravated identity theft, according to a criminal complaint and supporting affidavit filed by Diplomatic Security Service Special Agent Kate Cusack.

The man he allegedly pretended to be was born in 1982 and carries real driver's licenses in Puerto Rico and Florida — a different person entirely, prosecutors say. Investigators identified him in court records only by his initials.

The alleged fraud stretches back to 2009, when prosecutors say someone began walking into the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles using the victim's identity. Over the next 14 years, the RMV issued the same man — under the stolen name — two Massachusetts identification cards, four duplicate IDs or licenses, two driver's licenses and two learner's permits. Nine times in total, the affidavit alleges, he walked out of an RMV branch holding a state-issued ID in another man's name.

The State Department was next. On November 4, 2024, Baez Romero allegedly walked into a U.S. Post Office in Dorchester, filled out a passport application under the victim's name, signed it under penalty of perjury, attached a photograph of himself, and handed over a Massachusetts driver's license and a Puerto Rico birth certificate in the victim's name as supporting documents. Nine days later, the State Department mailed a fresh U.S. passport to a Dane Street apartment in Somerville — in the victim's name.

The affidavit alleges Baez Romero used the stolen identity to walk into Suffolk Superior Court too. In 2011, prosecutors say, he was arraigned under the victim's name on a charge of possession with intent to distribute Class B drugs and later received a two-and-a-half-year prison sentence — served, in the records, by a man he wasn't. Dorchester District Court drug-distribution cases in 2014 and 2016 produced additional committed sentences under the same stolen name, according to the affidavit.

While the alleged court record was building, prosecutors say, the stolen identity was being used to pull money out of Massachusetts. Applications for SNAP benefits started in 2012, with the applicant claiming to be a U.S. citizen and using the victim's date of birth and Social Security number on forms submitted to the Massachusetts Department of Transitional Assistance. Between 2012 and December 2025, the affidavit says, the individual posing as the victim collected approximately $26,942 in SNAP — nearly $14,792 of it between October 2021 and December 2025 alone.

MassHealth was hit too. Applications in 2014 and 2015 listed the victim's name, date of birth and Social Security number under penalty of perjury, federal investigators said. Between 2012 and May 2026, MassHealth paid out approximately $48,785.42 under the stolen identity. Combined with the SNAP draws, that's roughly $75,727 in Massachusetts taxpayer money funneled out under a real American's name.

The case cracked open at sea. On May 10, 2026, Homeland Security Investigations agents intercepted a recreational vessel near Key Biscayne, Florida. Baez Romero, on board, identified himself as the victim and claimed to be a U.S. citizen from Puerto Rico, according to the affidavit.

The story didn't hold. By the next day, during immigration processing, prosecutors say he admitted "that he is not a United States citizen and that his true identity is Mario Jose BAEZ ROMERO" and that he is "a citizen and national of the Dominican Republic."

He was already in federal custody in the Southern District of Florida on separate charges of making false statements to a federal agency and improper entry by an alien when the Massachusetts complaint was filed.

A significant portion of the federal affidavit rests on a single page of photographs. Special Agent Cusack pulled RMV photos dating back to 2009, booking photos from multiple Massachusetts criminal cases, a Dominican Republic Cedula identity-card photo, and the November 2024 passport application photo, and lined them up side by side.

"I believe each of the above-referenced photographs depict the same individual, namely, BAEZ ROMERO," Cusack wrote.

A tattoo on the right side of the man's neck, she noted, appears across multiple photographs.

The case is United States v. Mario Jose Baez Romero, 1:26-mj-07280-JCB, assigned to U.S. Magistrate Judge Jennifer C. Boal. A federal complaint is a charging document, not a conviction. If convicted of passport fraud and aggravated identity theft, Baez Romero faces significant federal penalties, prosecutors said.