Megan Pellijeff - Passport Canada (IRCC) Security Bureau

If you review the message Dextraze sent Pellijeff, you will immediately notice Dextraze was talking complete nonsense, making all kinds of false claims and allegations against me Dextraze Asks IRCC for Guidance, Marie Dextraze profile. But don't just take my word for it, review it for yourself.

But from Pellijeff's response, it is clear Pellijeff unquestioningly accepted everything Dextraze said as true. Pellijeff did no verify any of those allegations. A particularly disturbing example is that Dextraze falsely claimed I had claimed I was a victim of identity theft. But in reality, what I told Dextraze was that I had essentially assumed Ricky Riess's identity - that I committed identity theft, not that I was the victim of identity theft. I'll explain why this is so mind-blowingly insane in the next section.

In Dextraze's message to Chen and Pellijeff, Dextraze claimed I had claimed I was a victim of identity theft. Although she didn't expand on that, I believe her implication was that I was claiming DHS's allegation of me being the person who was born Ricky Riess in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada is the result of someone stealing my identity.

And from Pellijeff's response it is clear that is also how she took it, for she said, "We understand ... he has declared himself a victim of identity theft and are surprised he is not more willing to provide sufficient information to prove he is not our subject."

And let me stop you right here! There is no record of me ever saying anything to Dextraze about identity theft. Up to this point, I had never communicated with Dextraze other than by mail, and there is no mention of identity theft in any of my letters. Neither as the victim nor as the perpetrator. I can't imagine why she claimed that.

Now let's consider how utterly idiotic it is that Pellijeff would just blindly accept that claim from Dextraze, considering Pellijeff was a fraud investigator.

If someone else had stolen my identity, that is, Patrick Fox from Florida, how would that possibly cause ICE to think I am a person named Ricky Riess from Sudbury, Canada? There is simply no scenario in which someone else using my identity would cause the US authorities to mistakenly think I was a person named Ricky Riess from Canada.

How is it possible that did not occur to Pellijeff? How is it possible that Pellijeff did not respond to Dextraze asking her to explain how someone stealing my identity would cause me to be mistakenly identified as another person, a person from Canada who has the same name and date of birth as me? She's a fucking passport fraud investigator for fuck sakes!

In the above referenced statement by Pellijeff, she also said they were surprised I was not more willing to provide sufficient information to prove I am not their subject. It seems she suspects my apparent unwillingness to provide such information is an indication that I really am Ricky Riess from Sudbury, Canada.

But again, Pellijeff is demonstrating her incompetence as a fraud investigator. My objective at the time was to get out of ICE custody and get back to my son, who was ten years old at the time. I had been in custody for four years. I hadn't seen my son in four years. If letting the Canadian authorities believe I was someone else, a person born in Canada, would get me out of ICE custody and back to my son, then fuck it, of course I'm not going to do anything to prove I'm not that person from Canada. But at the same time, I'm not going to falsely claim to be him. If Pellijeff had ANY competence as a fraud investigator, this would have occurred to her.

Pellijeff wrote, in her response, the first and last name, date of birth, and signature, on file for the Ricky Riess passport seem to indicate the person in ICE custody is their subject, and based on that she can make a preliminary determination that I, and the person on the passport are the same.

And again, I have to point out Pellijeff's amazing ineptitude.

Let's see, I am the person who filled out the passport application, using the name Richard Riess and the date of birth 1973-11-24. I am the person who included the photo of myself with the application. I am the person who signed the application. Therefore, all the information Pellijeff is relying on is the information I provided on the passport application. Of course, it's going to match me! The fact that the signature on the passport application matches my signature is not evidence I am the person who was born Ricky Riess in Sudbury, Canada; it's evidence that I am the person who filled out the passport application!

At no point did Pellijeff ever ask or consider the question: Am I the person the passport purports to represent? That was the only question which mattered and that was the one question nobody asked.

Pellijeff then said, in her response, that the information provided for the letter of facilitation from 2009 contain much more information, which further substantiates the same determination.

Pellijeff is saying that because the request the Canadian Consulate received from ICE in 2009, contained additional information specific to Ricky Riess, such as his mother's maiden name, and his place of birth, which further supports her determination that I must be Ricky Riess from Sudbury, Canada. Because, of course, only the real Ricky Riess could possibly know that information, right?

However, that information came from ICE, not from me. And ICE obtained that information from Ricky Riess's Ontario birth certificate which they received from the RCMP Birth Certificate. That birth certificate contained all the information ICE, or anyone else, would need to apply for and obtain Ricky Riess's birth certificate.

So using Pellijeff's logic, that would actually mean my Deportation Officer Michael Leal, is more likely Ricky Riess from Sudbury, Canada, because he is the one who provided that detailed information.

Then, in her response, Pellijeff acknowledged that fingerprints were on file. Presumably, she meant Ricky Riess's fingerprints, and presumably she was talking about the fingerprints taken by the Toronto Police in 1992 then submitted to the RCMP.

It would seem a fingerprint comparison would be such an easy and difinitive test to determine, beyond all doubt, whether or not I am Ricky Riess from Canada. And yet, once again, the Canadian authorities refused to pursue that!

Instead, Pellijeff suggested they have ICE take a photo of me so they can compare it to the photo on the passport. But that would mean nothing! Of course the photo would match me, I'm the person who filled out the passport application with Ricky Riess's information and submitted it with my photo. All that would prove is that I committed passport fraud, not that I'm the person who was born Ricky Riess in Sudbury.

It baffles me that there was so much resistance from the Canadian authorities to just doing the fucking fingerprint comparison.

So let's take a moment to consider the possible reasons the Canadians refused to compare the fingerprints:

• ICE had already obtained Ricky Riess's fingerprints from the Toronto Police in May 2008, before they charged me with perjury and false claim of US citizenship. So ICE knew as of that point, that my fingerprints didn't match his. And yet, they charged and prosecuted me for perjury and false claim of US citizenship based on me actually being Ricky Riess from Canada. I was convicted and sentenced to two years in prison. I was then ordered removed from the US, based on me being Ricky Riess from Canada and convicted of perjury and false claim of US citizenship. I spent a total of four years in custody, in the US, based on me being Ricky Riess from Canada.

  You would think, if my fingerprints matched Ricky Riess's ICE the US Attorney's Office would have used that as evidence against me at the false claim of US citizenship trial. That would have been much more compelling evidence than the handwriting/signature comparison they did rely on - which only proves I am the person who filled out the passport application, not that I'm actually the person named on the passport. But they didn't. There was not a single mention of fingerprints at that trial.

  Nor was there a single mention of the fingerprints in my removal proceedings.

  I had not become aware of the fingerprints, or that ICE had them, until November 2009, after I had already been convicted of perjury and false claim of US citizen, and ordered removed from the US.

• I suspect at some point prior to all this, ICE had told the Canadian Consulate about their handling and withholding of the fingerprints, and "suggested" the Canadian authorities not, ever, compare my fingerprints to Ricky Riess's because that would make ICE, DHS, and the US justice system look pretty bad.

• If the Canadian authorities determined through fingerprints that I'm not Ricky Riess, that would prove they erroneously issued me Ricky Riess's passport, which would make Passport Canada look bad, and it might degrade the integrity of Canadian passports. But I think this is a minor issue that wouldn't have compelled them to go to these lengths to cover it up.

  It would also prove they previously issued a travel document for me to be deported to Canada, based solely on what ICE, an agency of a foreign government told them, and without actually verifying I was a Canadian citizen Letter of Facilitation, 2009-12-30. Again, this would look bad for them but I'm not sure it would be enough to push them to these lengths.

• Later, after Canada had allowed the US to deport me to Canada, they would have a significant interest in not doing the fingerprint comparison because by that point it had become a much bigger, and more embarrassing issue. By that point they had knowingly allowed a person who they knew was not a Canadian citizen to be deported to Canada even though that person adamantly insisted he wasn't a Canadian citizen.

  They ignored that person's insistence he wasn't a Canadian citizen, insisting they didn't believe him, when meanwhile they knew all along he was telling the truth.

  But all this is happening before they actually allowed me to be deported to Canada, so it's not relevant to Pellijeff's actions.

So given all of the foregoing, I'm inclined to believe the Canadian authorities' refusal to do the fingerprint comparison was either:

1. to protect ICE, DHS, and the USAO from being exposed and embarrassed; or
2. because they are simply that petty and vindictive, and absolutely refuse to ever acknowledge being wrong about anything, ever; or
3. they actually are as grossly inept, as utterly brain dead as I suspect they are.

Even though there is no official record of the fingerprint comparison being done, I am quite certain the Canadian authorities did actually do it. And they, like ICE, discovered my fingerprints didn't match Ricky Riess's. Because, I'll tell you what: If they discovered my fingerprints did match Ricky Riess's, you can be absolutely certain they would disclose that.