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Elisha Dawkins, the veteran of the Army and Navy who was jailed for passport fraud and subsequently found out he was not an actual American citizen, has settled his case. He will be allowed to walk free and will now be able to obtain legal American citizenship.
Dawkins was jailed in March after he applied for a passport and checked a box claiming he had never previously applied for one. Technically, he had begun the application process a year earlier but had abandoned it.
Prosecutors claimed Dawkins was not an American citizen. He was born in the Bahamas but was raised in Miami believing he was an American citizen. His citizenship was never questioned after he served honorably in the Army and Navy.
Today Dawkins finally walks free. He had originally turned down an opportunity to enter a “pretrial diversion” program that would see felony charges dropped, but he changed his mind late yesterday. In addition to staying out of jail, the deal will make Dawkins’s path to citizenship much easier, and he could potentially one day return to naval service.
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