only serve a year and a day on a plea deal, then be deported

A Texas man whose life was destroyed when a sex offender stole his identity hopes he will be able to rebuild his world now the thief has pleaded guilty to misusing his Social Security number.

Marcus Calvillo, 46, was only a teen when illegal immigrant Fernando Neave-Ceniceros, now 41, stole his Social Security number to hide his own identity and lack of illegal status.

Over the next 20-plus years Neave-Ceniceros would go on to commit crimes, including sex offenses with young teens, under Calvillo's name - ruining his life in the process. But the thief will likely only receive a year and a day in prison,The Dallas Morning News reported.

Victim: Marcus Calvillo, 46, of Texas, had his identity stolen when he was just a teen. Over the next 20 years he was accused of a series of crimes, including sex offenses against a minor, rendering him unemployable

Neave-Ceniceros was a teenager when he stole Calvillo's Social Security number to hide the fact that he'd entered the US illegally from Mexico.

He was later fingerprinted under that false identity, tying the hapless Grand Prairie man to Neave-Ceniceros's criminal record for the next 20-plus years.

Calvillo was unaware until, still a teen, he was wrongly accused of writing bad checks. Then he was told he hadn't paid parking tickets that he had never received.

It was only when he was in his twenties that he made a clerk at a temporary employment agency tell him why they wouldn't hire him and discovered he had developed a criminal record, he told the Statesman.

'I almost broke down,' the father of six recalled. 'Oh, my God! This is why I couldn't get this job.'

Over the years he watched in horror as his criminal record expanded to include incidents of indecent liberties with a child, bribery and drug offenses - making him all but unemployable.

Even when he had jobs, they didn't last for long - he told The Dallas Morning News how he was fired from his job as a cable installer, on being told 'You know what you did.'

And things got worse.

His marriage collapsed, leaving him owing tens of thousands of dollars in child support he couldn't pay; he went to cosmetology school but was denied a license; the Inland Revenue came calling about wages Neace-Ceniceros had been paid at a meatpacking plant.

Ultimately he lost his house.

Thief: Fernando Neave-Ceniceros, 41, from Mexico, stole Calvillo's name in order to hide the fact that he was living illegally in the U.S. He has now pleaded guilty to identity theft, but is expected to serve just one year

But in 2013 he saw a way out when he read an Associated Press story about a Houston teacher, Candida Gutierrez, who had also become a victim of identity theft.

He contacted Assistant U.S. Attorney Brent Anderson, the prosecutor in that case, for help.

'I don’t know of a case where the theft of an identity had a more devastating impact than this one,' Anderson told the Dallas Morning News.

And in September of last year federal prosecutors unsealed Neave-Ceniceros's indictment for aggravated identity theft, making a false statement to the government, misuse of a Social Security number and false claim of U.S. citizenship.

Neave-Ceniceros will be sentenced July 25. He will most likely serve just a year and a day under a plea agreement - served alongside the prison sentence he is currently serving at Ellsworth Correctional Facility - and then be deported.

That means Calvillo can finally begin down the long path of setting things right - first by having federal prosecutors correct records in each of the seven counties - and other states - where Neave-Ceniceros committed his crimes.

At present a simple Google search for Marcus Calvillo brings up a Kansas sex offender registration with a picture of Neave-Ceniceros that accuses him of 'lewd fondling or touching' of a child between 14 and 15.

'I think we will be able to get that done through the U.S. attorney’s office eventually with the help of the courts and state officials and local officials,' Anderson told the Statesman.

'But it is still going to require a lot of time and effort.'