United States v. Worku, No. 14-1218 (10th Cir. 2015)
Annotate this CaseDefendant-appellant Kefelegne Alemu Worku was an Ethiopian man who entered the United States after assuming the identity of an Eritrean man, Habteab Berhe Temanu. Using Berhe's identity, Worku lived in the Denver area for years and eventually became a U.S. citizen. Immigration authorities learned that Worku was using a false identity and suspected that he had tortured Ethiopian prisoners in the 1970s. After an investigation and trial, Worku was convicted of: (1) unlawful procurement of citizenship or naturalization; (2) fraud and misuse of visas, permits, and other documents, and (3) aggravated identity theft. Worku was sentenced to 22 years, relying in part on a finding that he had committed these crimes to conceal violations of human rights in Ethiopia. On appeal, Worku argued (1) the immigration-related convictions violated the Double Jeopardy Clause; (2) the conviction for aggravated identify theft was improper because Worku had permission to use Berhe's identity; (3) the sentence was procedurally unreasonable because there was no evidence that Worku had come to the United States to conceal violations of human rights and the witnesses identifying him as an Ethiopian torturer had done so because of improperly suggestive photo arrays; and (4) the sentence was substantively unreasonable. Finding no merit to any of these contentions, the Tenth Circuit affirmed.
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