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del.icio.usMan admits he falsified identity
BY RON SYLVESTER
The Wichita Eagle
"Who are you?" asked U.S. District Judge Monti Belot.
"Ted Riley Floyd," the 28-year-old man answered.
"Do you sometimes go by the name Nathaniel James Levi?" the judge asked.
"I did for six years," he answered.
Before he pleaded guilty Monday to using a false name to apply for a U.S. passport in Wichita, Floyd lived under the name Levi in the Orthodox Jewish community of Lakewood, N.J.
The revelation of Floyd's true identity shocked the large Lithuanian Jewish community in Lakewood, where he lived with his wife and children. It made headlines on Jewish news services throughout New Jersey, Brooklyn and across the state of New York.
The identity confusion continued Monday.
Ted Riley Floyd wasn't his birth name, but rather one his grandparents gave him when they adopted him at age five.
"I just wanted to make sure we have the right person," Belot told Floyd.
"You do," he replied.
He was born Daniel Lashawn Floyd on July 24, 1979, public defender Steve Gradert explained to the judge. His maternal grandparents adopted the youngster in 1984. As part of the decree of adoption, they had his name legally changed to Ted Riley Floyd. His grandparents live in Tucson.
Floyd underwent a conversion to Judaism in Wichita between 2000 and 2002, before moving to New Jersey to live an Orthodox lifestyle.
While in Wichita, in March 2002, he applied for a passport at the Corporate Hills post office with the name and Social Security number of Nathaniel James Levi, a deceased U.S. Navy veteran.
His lawyer and a Wichita rabbi who has visited Floyd in the Sedgwick County Jail have maintained Levi assumed the identity in a misguided attempt to be accepted into the strict Orthodox Jewish lifestyle.
He apparently applied for the passport so he could travel to Israel as part of his conversion, Rabbi Nissim Wernick of the Hebrew Congregation in Wichita has said.
Gradert asked Belot to release Floyd from jail, saying his client needed to have better communication with his family to work out marital problems his arrest had created.
Belot denied the request but said he would agree to expedited sentencing.
Floyd's plea agreement calls for a prison sentence of a year and a day. Any jail time he serves would count as time served on his prison sentence.
If he earns credit for good behavior in prison, Floyd might be out in 10 months.
Floyd had refused to eat for four days in the county jail, while he waited for authorities to make arrangements to serve him kosher meals.
Reach Ron Sylvester at 316-268-6514 or rsylvester@wichitaeagle.com.
