ST. LOUIS (AP) - A St. Louis man has been ordered to spend four and a half years in federal prison for using social security numbers of others to conceal his criminal past while finding work with information technology companies.
Twenty-nine-year-old Lawrence Jerel Higgins was sentenced Wednesday in St. Louis. That's where he pleaded guilty in April to four counts of Social Security fraud and three counts of aggravated identity theft.
Court documents show that Higgins had been convicted of fraud before January of last year. Prosecutors say that in order to conceal his criminal history from prospective employers, Higgins used fictitious social security numbers as well as his brother's social security number and birthdate to get jobs with two information technology companies.