A Brazilian national has been arrested for allegedly stealing the identity of a four-year-old Atlanta boy who died in a car crash in 1979 – and building a life in the US that included working as a United Airlines flight attendant for more than 20 years.
Ricardo Cesar Guedes, 49, is facing federal charges of providing a false statement in a passport application, falsely impersonating a US citizen and entering an airport secure area under false pretenses due to his job as a flight attendant, which allowed him to pass through security checkpoints at many American airports.
Federal prosecutors claim in a criminal complaint filed in the Southern District of Texas that Guedes stole the identity of William Ericson Ladd, of Atlanta, who died just one month before his fifth birthday in a 1979 car crash in Washington State.
Authorities say Guedes, who lives in Lake Houston, Texas, came to the US sometime in the mid-1990s and overstayed his tourist visa.
He began using a Social Security card in Ladd’s name 17 years after the boy died and applied for a passport in Ladd’s name in 1998, according to the Houston Chronicle.
Guedes apparently had no connection to the boy and officials did not reveal how he managed to get the dead boy’s Social Security number.
However, once he had the information, Guedes bought a Lake Houston home, got married, bought a BMW, took out a mortgage and started his career at United as an illegal immigrant, according to the Chronicle.
He is now being detained pending a trial, and a United Airlines spokesperson confirmed to Business Insider that Guedes has been fired in the wake of the scandal.
DailyMail.com has reached out to his attorney for comment.
Ricardo Cesar Guedes, 49, is facing criminal charges for allegedly stealing the identity of William Ericson Ladd, of Atlanta, who died just one month before his fifth birthday in a 1979 car crash in Washington State
Guedes worked as a flight attendant for United Airlines for 23…