Man charged with perjury

Published 7:14 am Tuesday, March 2, 2010

A Brownsdale man faces perjury charges after an officer allegedly discovered that he had used an alias while under oath.

William Ivan Cifuentes-Garcia, 26, appeared in Mower County court on Friday on the two felony-level perjury counts and two lesser charges. He is in custody and scheduled for arraignment on March 11.

According to a criminal complaint, the discrepancy came to light in late January while an officer was performing a pre-sentencing investigation on an individual for a driving offense. “Michael Mesa,” who had plead guilty to a gross misdemeanor DWI last fall, was found linked to two separate addresses — one in Minnesota and one in Texas — during that investigation.

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When the officer spoke with “Mesa” about this, he admitted that his real name was Cifuentes-Garcia and that he had used the alias to work at Quality Pork Processors in Austin.

Because he went all the way through the DWI case with an alias, Cifuentes-Garcia committed perjury twice — once when submitting a financial affidavit on Nov. 13, 2009, and once again when he entered his guilty plea on Nov. 19.