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A 26-year-old illegal immigrant who stole another man’s identity to get a job as a cook at a Marco Island restaurant and then obtained medical benefits has been sentenced to a year in jail on a fraud charge.

“He cheated American citizens out of a job,” Assistant State Attorney Jerry Brock said of Carlos Herrera of Marco Island before Tuesday’s sentencing.

Collier County Circuit Judge Frank Baker adjudicated the Guatemalan guilty of scheme to defraud involving less than $20,000 and imposed the recommended guidelines sentence of one-year in county jail, giving him credit for the three days he served after his Jan. 23 arrest in the county jail before his release on $20,000 bond.

After an investigation by the Florida Department of Financial Services, Herrera, who lived on Waterleaf Court, was charged with scheme to defraud, using a false ID for a workers’ compensation claim, and possession of counterfeit documents. A criminal information filed by the State Attorney’s Office later charged him with only the top charge, a third-degree felony.

An affidavit filed by the department’s detective, Glen Clasen, says attorney Mark S. Kluger alerted the department that Herrera was illegally using a Social Security number issued in California to obtain employment and workers’ compensation fraud.

The affidavit says Herrera used a fake Social Security card and filled out an Immigration Form I-9 and IRS Form W-4 using bogus information when he was hired as a prep cook at Cocomo’s Grill on Marco Island on May 8, 2006. He defrauded them until he quit on Sept. 10, 2006.

On July 24, 2006, he cut his finger while prepping food and sought medical treatment at Marco Health Center, returning to work a week later. In August 2006, an insurance company investigated Herrera and alerted Detective Clasen, who was told by the Social Security Administration two months later that the number didn’t belong to Herrera. Clasen then interviewed the grill’s owner, Anthony Scott Gibbs.

Herrera faced up to five years in a state prison on the charge, but was sentenced as part of a plea agreement negotiated by Brock and Assistant Public Defender Dave Whiting.

“The defendant is not an American citizen and entered the U.S. illegally to obtain employment,” Brock told the judge, adding that he also illegally obtained medical benefits he wasn’t entitled to. “We’re satisfied they’re going to deport this individual.”