A custodian at Saguaro High School accused of raping a 14-year-old girl on the Scottsdale campus is an illegal immigrant from Mexico and shouldn’t have been eligible to work in the United States, an immigration official said Wednesday.Russell Ahr, a spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said the paperwork that Roberto Lemus-Retana provided to ABM Janitorial Services, the company that contracts with the Scottsdale Unified School District, is counterfeit.Or, there is a possibility Lemus-Retana was using someone else’s name and Social Security number, Ahr said.
Since the incident, the district has run its own background check on Lemus-Retana’s Social Security number, and asked Scottsdale police to do the same, Peterson said. But neither the district’s nor the police’s background check indicated he was in the country illegally, Peterson said.
Lemus-Retana had been arrested in Mohave County on suspicion of driving under the influence May 14, and supplied a driver’s license at the time. He was removed by U.S. Border Patrol agents four days later from that county’s jail to be returned to Mexico, Ahr said. The ICE spokesman could not confirm that Lemus-Retana left the United States.
Lemus-Retana didn’t have a Social Security number and was not a U.S. citizen when he was arrested May 14, and he shouldn’t have had a valid one when he was hired by ABM, Ahr said. “Anyone can go into a swap market and get certified documents,” Ahr said. “Someone gave him a Social Security number, loaned him one, he made one up or he went to the flea market and bought one.”
2006-08-31
05:34:49
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