New Jersey Man Sentenced for Passport Fraud

Acting United States Attorney Donald Feith announced on July 2, 2015, that Robert Codjoe, 54, of Piscataway, NJ, was sentenced for passport fraud, according to a press statement.

Codjoe will be put on one year of probation, six months of home confinement, and a $2,000 fine connected to a case from the 1990s.

According to Feith, in November 1998, Codjoe applied for and was issued a U.S. passport in the name “Robert Codjoe.” Two years later, he applied for and was issued a U.S. passport in the name “Robert Codjoe Nii.”

For many years, Codjoe maintained two United States passports each bearing his photograph, but issued under different names, different social security numbers, and different dates of birth.

In July 2009, Codjoe renewed the passport issued in the name “Robert Codjoe” by filing a passport renewal application with the National Passport Center located in Portsmouth. In June 2011, he attempted to renew the passport issued in the name “Robert Codjoe Nii” by filing a passport renewal application with the National Passport Center. That application contained several false statements, including Codjoe’s name and date of birth.

The National Passport Center referred Codjoe’s renewal application for investigation. The investigation uncovered Condjoe’s fraud and resulted in a federal grand jury indicting him for passport fraud in March 2014. Codjoe pleaded guilty on Feb. 25, 2015.

This case, according to the press statement, was investigated by Diplomatic Security Service of the U.S. State Department. It was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Mark S. Zuckerman.