TAMPA, Fla. — A Mexican citizen who has lived 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 in his passport application.
Juan Arturo Martinez, 62, was declared by US District Judge Stephen D. Maryday in February 2025 after admitting to using his fraudulent identity to obtain a US passport and engaged in reserved activities for US citizens, including voting in the presidential election.
Court records show that Martinez, born in Mexico, filed a fraudulent passport application in Sarasota on March 1, 2002. To help with the application, he provided a fake Texas birth certificate and falsely claimed US citizenship. Based on that application, a passport was issued to him later that month.
In 2012, Martinez used an expired passport to mail the renewal application, mistakenly stating that he was born again in Mission, Texas. That fraud information led to the issuance of a second passport that he used as ID in 2013 to obtain a Florida driver’s license. I also used my passport multiple times on my trips, including a cruise from Port Canaveral in September 2021.
Martinez filed another renewal application in 2022, again incorrectly listing his birthplace in the United States.
US State Department investigators also found that Martinez voted and voted in multiple US presidential elections and illegally registered to vote despite having no legal rights.
The case was indicted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Karina Valdez.
Federal voter fraud charges since the 2024 election
Since the US presidential election in November 2024, only a small number of voter fraud prosecutions related to that election cycle have surfaced. In particular, in April 2025, two Ukrainian citizens were indicted in an illegal early voting in the 2024 presidential election in Palm Beach County, Florida. Svitlana Demydenko and her daughter Ilizaveta, who do not own US citizenship, were registered during early voting and voted illegally. These charges were released by the US Lawyer’s Office for the Southern District of Florida.
Beyond that, federal authorities have launched an investigation. Although it often uses new cross-division structures such as Doge and DOJ refocused voting sections, at this time, several indictments or formal charges related to actual voting have been reported.
