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Published Tuesday, November 17, 2020
U.S. citizen sex crime fugitive once
living in Costa Rica sentenced
in the U.S.
By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
U.S. District Judge Carlos E. Mendoza has sentenced a U.S. citizen man surnamed Pohlmann, 65, from Longwood to three years and two months in federal prison for passport fraud and identity theft, announced the U.S. Attorney’s Office from the Middle District of Florida.
According to the information provided by the U.S. Justice Department, this sentence will be served consecutively to Pohlmann’s Florida state sentence for lewd act upon a child and lewd act in the presence of a child.
Also, Pohlmann was found guilty of passport fraud and identity theft after a bench trial on August 18, 2020.
According to testimony and evidence presented at trial and sentencing, Pohlmann applied for a passport in his brother’s name in May 2000 in order to flee the United States after having failed to appear for an Orange County jury trial in June 2000 on child molestation charges.
In 2006, Pohlmann renewed the false passport using his brother’s name at the U.S. Embassy in San José, Costa Rica. Allegedly he was living in Costa Rica at that time.
In 2007, Pohlmann was arrested for cocaine trafficking in Italy using his brother’s name.
In 2016, the U.S. Department of State discovered Pohlmann’s fraud as a result of another renewal application.
It is unclear when Pohlmann returned to the United States, but on January 2, 2018, more than 17 years after Pohlmann failed to appear for his Orange County jury trial, special agents with the U.S. Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service (DSS), working with the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office, tracked down Pohlmann at his mother’s home in Longwood, Florida.
Pohlmann was then arrested on the pending child molestation charges and was later convicted of those charges.
After Pohlmann was sentenced to 11 years and 3 months for lewd act upon a child and lewd act in the presence of a child in Orange County, he was transferred to federal court to face the federal charges for passport fraud and identity theft that led to his capture.
This case was investigated by the U.S. Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service, with assistance from the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office and the Orange County Sheriff’s Office. It was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney E. Jackson Boggs Jr.
In Costa Rica, the judicial agents of the Judicial Investigation Organization call on the population to report any suspicion of child sex crime to the confidential line 800-8000-645, where there are bilinguals agents who can answer calls in English or Spanish.
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