A Mexican national who has been living illegally in the United States for decades has been sentenced to four months in federal prison after pleading guilty to passport fraud and making false statements on a passport application.
Juan Arturo Martinez, 62, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Steven D. Merryday after admitting in February 2025 to using a false identity to obtain US passports and engage in activities reserved for US citizens, such as voting in presidential elections.
According to court records, Martinez, who was born in Mexico, submitted a false passport application in Sarasota on March 1, 2002. He presented a fake Texas birth certificate to support his application, falsely claiming US citizenship. Later that month, he received his passport as a result of his application.
Martinez mailed a renewal application in 2012, using his expired passport and falsely claiming to be born in Mission, Texas. That bogus information resulted in the granting of a second passport, which he used to obtain a Florida driver’s license in 2013. He also used the passport for other trips, including a September 2021 cruise from Port Canaveral.
Martinez submitted another renewal application in 2022, this time falsely claiming to be born in the United States.
The U.S. Department of State also discovered that Martinez unlawfully registered to vote and cast ballots in multiple presidential elections despite having no legal authority to do so.
Assistant US Attorney Karyna Valdes prosecuted the case.
Federal Voter Fraud Charges Since the 2024 Election
Only a few voting fraud prosecutions have surfaced in the United States since the November 2024 presidential election. Notably, in April 2025, two Ukrainian nationals were prosecuted for illegal early voting in Palm Beach County, Florida, during the 2024 presidential election. Svitlana Demydenko and her daughter Yelyzaveta, neither of whom holds US citizenship, enrolled and voted illegally during early voting. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida announced these allegations.
Beyond that, federal authorities have launched investigations—often using new cross-departmental institutions like DOGE and the DOJ’s refocused voting section—but as of now, only a few indictments or formal charges connected to actual voting malfeasance have been announced.