Passport application exposed policeman's identity

Federal authorities caught an illegal immigrant from Mexico working as an Anchorage police officer after he and the U.S. citizen he was impersonating filed for separate passports using the same personal information, police said Tuesday.
Rafael Mora-Lopez, 47, faces one count of passport fraud in federal court. It's unclear yet if additional federal or state charges will be filed, or if the dozens of cases Mora-Lopez investigated during almost six years on the police force are in jeopardy.
Court records indicate Mora-Lopez posted bail Tuesday and was released under conditions that include home confinement and electronic monitoring.
He was known to the Anchorage Police Department as Officer Rafael Espinoza, thought to be 51 years old. The alleged imposter was a respected patrol officer who worked nights and received an award last year for saving a person's life, according to Police Chief Mark Mew.
But it appears he was living a lie.
"There's only one real Rafael Espinoza ... one that has that date of birth, all the other pieces of identity that go with that one person," Mew said.
The real Espinoza has dual-citizenship in the United States and another country and does not live in the United States, Mew said. He declined to say where Espinoza lived or identify his dual nationality. He also declined to say whether the two men knew each other.
The real Espinoza also did not have any criminal record, Mew said.
"Then there is a fellow by the name of Mora-Lopez, who comes to the United States and uses the name of the fellow who does not live here. And we hired him," Mew said.
In January, Mora-Lopez applied to renew the passport he held under the name Espinoza. But sometime prior to that renewal application, the real Espinoza had also applied for a U.S. passport. State Department officials noticed there were two men using the same identifying characteristics on their applications, and the ensuing investigation found Mora-Lopez to be the imposter, according to Mew and federal officials.
In his press conference, Mew said he wanted to address lingering questions following the announcement Friday that Mora-Lopez had been arrested the day before.
"He applied for a passport in somebody else's name. People get that. They don't have a lot of questions about that," Mew said. "The questions they have are about us."
For example, people want to know why routine fingerprint analysis for police recruits did not turn up any discrepancies, or how the imposter made it past a lie-detector test performed on recruits, Mew said.
"If somebody shows up on your radar screen, they apply and you print them, and you send those to the FBI, they bounce it off the federal database," Mew said. "If you're not in there, then what they return is a result saying no fingerprint hits at all. And from there it's a name search, and the name search turned up nothing."
Mew said the department was looking at results from the polygraph test Mora-Lopez took to see if the right questions were asked, if the tester's conclusions from the interview were correct, and if Mora-Lopez is "one of those rare people who is capable of fooling a polygraph."
Police officials are also looking at their entire hiring process in the wake of the Mora-Lopez arrest, Mew said.
"I've never had reason to suspect we have a fundamental error in our system, but we'll look and see," Mew said.
The ongoing investigation is looking into Mora-Lopez's record as an officer, and so far there is no evidence to suggest he acted improperly, Mew said Tuesday.
In fact, the man known as Officer Espinoza earned two commendations in the past year. One is called the Lifesaver Award, given to Espinoza after helping to bring back a person on the brink of death on May 29, 2010, Mew said.
"He helped save a life with another officer," Mew said. "They gave CPR to a person who was not breathing and didn't have a pulse."
Before his arrest, Officer Espinoza was set to receive a letter of recognition from the chief for a recent rescue from mudflats near Anchorage, Mew said. He showed reporters the commendation at the news conference.
Other police officers liked Espinoza, and they're shocked about what happened, Mew said.
"They know it's got to be done," Mew said. I think they're saddened. While they like the officer, they don't like what he's done to our reputation by going about things the way he went about them."