Man Arrested in Portage Pleads Guilty to Being in U.S. Illegally
A French citizen who was deported from the U.S. in 2015 faces prison time after he was found riding a bike on a logging road in Aroostook County.
Philippe Maurice, 50, pleaded guilty Monday in U.S. District Court in Bangor to being an alien who was found in the United States after having been removed and deported, according to Acting U. S. Attorney Richard W. Murphy.
Court documents reveal that on the afternoon of May 17, U.S. Border Patrol agents found the defendant riding a bike on a dirt logging road in Portage, Maine. Maurice claimed he was a U.S. citizen.
When an agent asked the defendant for proof of citizenship, he produced a French driver’s license. The defendant then acknowledged that he was a French citizen, that friends had dropped him off in Canada near the border, and that he entered the U. S. illegally by riding a bike through the closed St. Pamphile Port of Entry.
Maurice faces up to two years in prison and a $250,000 fine. He will be sentenced after the completion of a pre-sentence investigation report by the U.S. Probation Office, Murphy said.
The case was investigated by U.S. Border Patrol.