FOREST CITY, Iowa – After spending years pretending to be someone else, a man gets to spend more time as a prisoner in the Winnebago County Jail.
57-year-old Wendell Keith Hunter of Forest City has been sentenced to 180 days behind bars, ordered to pay $1,015 in fines, and must serve three years of probation. Hunter will receive credit for time already served.
He was arrested in 2016 and accused of using a birth certificate and a voter ID card from Pennsylvania to pass himself off as someone named Daniel Hughes. Hunter was charged with multiple crimes for using his false identity to get a job at 3M in Winnebago County and obtain utilities, insurance benefits, credit cards, voter registration, and a hunting and fishing license.
Hunter pleaded guilty to one count of identity theft and one count of fraudulent use of a birth certificate but failed to appear for a sentencing hearing in September 2017. In January, he was arrested in Tennessee and shipped back to Winnebago County.
