[PUBLISH] In the United States Court of Appeals For the Eleventh Circuit

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No. 24-11951 ____________________

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, versus STEVEN SCHRECK, a.k.a. Eugene Sandburg,

Defendant-Appellant.

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Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida D.C. Docket No. 2:23-cr-14042-AMC-1 ____________________ USCA11 Case: 24-11951 Document: 57-1 Date Filed: 03/13/2025 Page: 2 of 21

2 Opinion of the Court 24-11951

Before WILLIAM PRYOR, Chief Judge, and GRANT and LUCK, Circuit Judges. WILLIAM PRYOR, Chief Judge: This appeal requires us to determine whether sufficient evi- dence supports convictions for using a passport obtained by a false statement and for making a false statement in an application for a passport. See 18 U.S.C. § 1542. In 1977, Steven Schreck escaped from an Oregon prison and assumed the identity of a deceased man, Eugene Sandburg. Schreck acquired a passport using Sand- burg’s identity that same year. And, in later decades, Schreck used some of Sandburg’s information as his own whenever he renewed his passport. In 2021, Schreck provided only his own identifying in- formation in his application for passport renewal, but Schreck also submitted his passport from 2011—which listed Sandburg’s identi- fying date and location of birth as his own—with his application. And he certified that he had not “made false statements or included false documents in support of this application.” After a grand jury indicted Schreck for using a passport obtained by a false statement and for making a false statement in a passport application, a jury convicted him on both counts. The district court sentenced him to 12 months of probation. Because sufficient evidence supports both convictions, we affirm. I. BACKGROUND Steven Schreck was born on December 7, 1946, in Newark, New Jersey. In 1977, Schreck escaped from an Oregon prison fol- lowing his convictions for burglary and transporting forged USCA11 Case: 24-11951 Document: 57-1 Date Filed: 03/13/2025 Page: 3 of 21

24-11951 Opinion of the Court 3

securities. He initially fled to Kansas. After he saw a death notice in a local newspaper for Hervey Eugene Sandburg, Schreck decided to adopt Sandburg’s identity for himself. Posing as Sandburg, Schreck went to an office of the Kansas Department of Motor Ve- hicles, stated that he had lost his wallet, and received a temporary driver’s license. Schreck moved to Michigan later that year. Still posing as Sandburg, he provided an office of the Michigan Department of State with the temporary license he received in Kansas and re- quested a Michigan driver’s license. The Department fulfilled his request. With this license in hand, Schreck began working and ac- cumulated paperwork in Sandburg’s name. In effect, he “started living life again under the name Her[vey] Sandburg.” That same year, Schreck also met his wife in Michigan. They bought a house and started raising a family together. Later t