A U.S. Navy veteran behind bars for alleged passport fraud has until Friday to accept or turn down an offer that could lead to the dismissal of criminal charges, his attorney said Wednesday.
A federal indictment says former U.S. Petty Officer 2nd Class Elisha Leo Dawkins failed to acknowledge that he’d once applied for a passport when filling out a new application, something his lawyer Clark Mervis calls an innocent oversight — albeit one punishable by up to 10 years in prison, if Dawkins is convicted.
Adding to the complexity of the case is the fact that Dawkins may not be a U.S. citizen — something that, according to his attorney, he learned only recently and that did not factor into his arrest. Dawkins had been told by his mother, who is from the Bahamas, that he was born in Miami, and he had a Social Security number and birth certificate, according to a friend who is a former Navy pilot.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida made a pretrial diversion proposal that was revealed at a Tuesday court hearing, said Mervis. The attorney would not comment on what his client, held in the federal detention center in Miami, may do.
