Illegal Immigrant Used Fake ID
Lang said that Rivera presented a state-issued photo ID and a social security card when applying to work at the farm, which enabled him to pass an I-9 (state check) and social security verification. But the identity the illegal immigrant presented was fake.Lang said he mistakenly believed the Social Security Administration’s number verification service was E-Verify, but later learned that it wasn’t.
Lang declined to share the fake identity that Rivera was using.
A lawyer representing Rivera, who officials said confessed to killing Tibbetts on July 18 and led officials to her body in a remote cornfield near her hometown of Brooklyn, claimed his client was actually in the country legally but federal officials said there’s no data to support that claim.
Jessica Vaughan, the director of policy studies for the Center for Immigration Studies, told the outlet that identity fraud is the most common way illegal immigrants get jobs. She said there are identity vendors around the country that sell fake identifications, including from people in jail.
“There have been cases of inmates selling their identities because they are incarcerated and don’t need them,” she said.
Investigators believe that Rivera arrived in the United States between four and seven years ago; he worked for Yarrabee Farms for four years in day-to-day operations with cows and lived in a mobile home on the farm property. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have lodged an immigration detainer for Rivera, meaning he could be deported.
Became Angry at Tibbetts
Rivera, 24, told investigators that he became angry at Tibbetts, 20, when she threatened to call the police on him.The college student was jogging near Brooklyn, doing a circuit from and to the house of her boyfriend, where she was dogsitting while he was away on a work trip.
Rivera, driving a vehicle he may have also obtained using his fake identity, spotted Tibbetts while driving nearby.
He pulled over, got out, ran behind her, and then ran alongside her.
That’s when Tibbetts whipped out her phone and threatened to call the police.
“Rivera said he then panicked and got mad and that he then ‘blocked’ his ‘memory’ which is what he does when he gets very upset,” investigators stated. The next thing he knew, he was back in his car driving, with Tibbetts’ dead body in his trunk.