American justice indicted a couple who lived for 35 years under the names of deceased babies for “identity theft”, a case marked by suspicion of espionage, write AFP and Agerpres.
EspionageFoto: Stuart Clarke / Shutterstock Editorial / Profimedia Images
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Walter Primrose and his wife, Gwynn Morrison, both born in 1955, were arrested in Hawaii on Friday. According to court documents, an old photo of the couple dressed in KGB uniforms was found during a search of their home.
A federal judge ruled Thursday, during a telephone hearing, that the 60-year-old man was a “flight risk” and ordered his continued detention. His wife will appear before the magistrate next week.
According to the indictment, they went to school together in the 1970s in Texas, married there in 1980, and in 1987, for some unknown reason, stole the identities of Bobby Fort and Julie Montague, babies who had died a few years earlier and buried in nearby cemeteries.
They remarried in 1988 under these new names. In 1994, he joined the Coast Guard under the name Bobby Fort, serving in that capacity for 20 years before being hired by a Department of Defense subcontractor.
Over the years, they obtained numerous documents under their false identities, including driver’s licenses and several passports. They were eventually spotted in 2018 trying to enroll in the military and coast guard social security system.
The indictment does not refer to espionage charges, but a document filed in the proceedings to oppose their release suggests a complex case.
“Federal agents seized letters” addressed to the defendants “under names other than Bobby, Julie, Walter or Gwynn,” suggesting they were using multiple fake names, and found photographs of them wearing KGB military uniforms, federal prosecutor Clare Connors wrote.
A relative of Gwynn Morrison told officers that she lived in Romania when the country was still in the communist bloc, the prosecutor added.
As for her husband, as a Pentagon subcontractor, he was required to report all foreign travel and failed to do so for several stays in Canada, Clare Connors continued.
Gwynn Morrison’s lawyer, Megan Kau, said in a brief statement to AFP that her client did not admit the charges against her.
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