(Un)happy Repeat Offenders Day!

Yesterday (March 23) was one for repeat offenders in San Diego. Ramiro Plascencia-Orozco was given an extraordinarily long sentence — 15 years — for identity theft.

According to federal court records, Plascencia-Orozco has used at least 35 aliases over four decades, been removed from the United States more than 20 times, and been prosecuted 10 times for alien smuggling. For 30 years, he used the identity of a California farm worker who had troubles getting jobs because of Plascencia-Orozco's criminal record. In court, Plascencia-Orozco continued to assert that he is that farm worker.

Also, the federal government filed to bar Lawrence Preston Siegel (aka Larry Lave, Yehuda Lave, and Larry Easy) from falsely representing that he is a licensed attorney and certified public accountant.

Actually, Siegel resigned from the California Bar in 1994 after a conviction of tax evasion and lost his certified public accountant license in 1997. He was released from prison in 2001 following conviction for other crimes and advertised himself as "a tax lawyer and CPA who is also a rabbi trained in spirituality." Siegel then employed fraudulent schemes to cut his clients' taxes. One trick: telling clients to set up phony companies in Nevada and treat their California home as an out-of-state corporate office. Another: Siegel set up out-of-state sham companies and advised clients to lease their skills to the fraudulent firms.

According to the government complaint, Siegel attempted to delay and obstruct Internal Revenue Service examinations and provided false documents to the agency. Some other transgressions: while in prison in 1995, he made false statements to get furlough passes; the next year, he failed to appear for a sentencing, and in 1999 he was nailed for 14 counts of fraudulent use of Social Security accounts to open bank accounts.