A judge in Brazil went by the name Edward Albert Lancelot Dodd Canterbury Caterham Wickfield for his entire career but it was only after he retired that authorities discovered it was fake. Investigators say his real name is Jose Eduardo Franco dos Reis, which the Guardian notes is "a name fairly typical in a country once colonized by Portugal." His pension has been suspended and he has been charged with identity fraud and using false documents, though police say they have been unable to find him.
Investigators say the judge, who was born and raised in Brazil, started used fake documents in the Wickfield name and claimed to be the son of British aristocrats in the early 1980s, when he was admitted to the University of Sao Paolo law school. He claimed he had studies in the UK and his grandfather was a British judge. Reis became a judge in 1995 and retired in 2018. Former colleagues say he spoke Portuguese with a slight British accent, Globo reports. The ruse was discovered in October when he tried to get a new identity document in the Wickfield name but his fingerprints matched the ones on file for Reis.
Police say that when they brought Reis in for questioning, he said he was Reis and Wickfield was his twin brother, who had been adopted by British aristocrats when he was a child. He claimed he was renewing the ID card at his twin's request, Folha de Sao Paolo reports. Prosecutors believe Reis used both identities for different purposes over the years, though his motivation for the double life is unknown. He handed down thousands of decisions under the fake name during his decades as a judge and it's not clear whether they can now be challenged, Globo reports. (More Brazil stories.)
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