'Mystery Man' admits stealing dead boy's identity
CALDWELL, Idaho - Fans of AMC's "Mad Men" know the series hinges on a man who found success living life under a dead person's name.
Don Draper took the name of his Korean War comrade killed in action - and worked out the details with his "wife" back home, if not with himself.
Three-year-old Jason Evers was murdered in 1982.
In 2010, he asked for permission to get married - in jail.
Here's how that happened:
In 1996, a Bulgarian national brought Jason Evers back to life by getting a birth certificate in that name, then a Social Security number - and later, a government post enforcing the State of Oregon's liquor laws.
Jason's parents only learned their son's identity had been stolen when their son's killer came up for parole.
“The devastation suffered by the Evers family when they lost their baby boy to a murderer in 1982 was compounded when they learned around the time of the murderer’s parole hearing this year that a stranger had been living his life here in Oregon under their boy’s stolen identity,” said Dwight C. Holton, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Oregon.
Doitchin Krastev, 36, most recently of Caldwell, Idaho, and formerly an Oregon Liquor Control Commission manager in Bend and Eastern Oregon - not to mention federal custody - pleaded guilty Wednesday in U.S. District Court to one count of aggravated identity theft and one count of passport fraud.
He was scooped up in Idaho and sent to Portland, where the identity - or identities - of "John Doe" came to public light through court filings.
Krastev left a host family in the Washington, D.C., area wondering what had happened to him more than a decade OK. Details about the "Oregon Mystery Man" fascinated Oregonians for weeks.
Krastev is scheduled to be sentenced before the Honorable James A. Redden on Jan. 18, 2011, at 10 a.m.
In pleading guilty, Krastev - who went by the name "Jason Evers" for more than a decade, building a career with the State of Oregon's liquor agency - admitted that he is a citizen of the Republic of Bulgaria and not a native or citizen of the United States.
"In 1996, Krastev applied for a copy of the birth certificate of Jason Robert Evers for the purpose of assuming a new identity in the United States after learning that Evers had been murdered in 1982 at the age of three," federal prosecutors said in a press release.
"Also in 1996, Krastev applied for and obtained a Social Security number in the name of Jason Robert Evers. In 2002, he used the Evers name, Social Security number, and date of birth to apply for a United States passport, and in his application he falsely represented that he was a United States citizen.
"In 2008, he used the Evers name and Social Security Number to apply for a promotion to regional manager at the Oregon Liquor Control Commission," the release says.
"Krastev’s identity theft was discovered as part of “Operation Death Match,” a program of the United States Diplomatic Security Service that compares passport applications and state death certificates."
Three-year-old Jason Evers was murdered in 1982.
“The devastation suffered by the Evers family when they lost their baby boy to a murderer in 1982 was compounded when they learned around the time of the murderer’s parole hearing this year that a stranger had been living his life here in Oregon under their boy’s stolen identity,” said Dwight C. Holton, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Oregon. “Identity theft is a serious crime that has real victims, and real consequences.”
"The U.S. passport and visa are two of the most coveted travel documents in the world," said Pat Durkin, Special Agent in Charge of the San Francisco Field office for the U.S. State Department's Diplomatic Security Service.
"There are foreign nationals who fraudulently acquire U.S. passports and visas to carry out criminal activities, including terrorism, inside our borders. These crimes threaten the national security of the United States, plain and simple."
