A False Identity, a Real Problem : It’s possible to slip through cracks in the system, even if someone catches on that a suspect is posing as someone else.

His name was Greg Dominguez Hammer--at least that is how he identified himself when arrested in June, 1989, after burglarizing an apartment in Los Feliz.

He was actually someone else. But no one within the criminal justice system--not the police, the prosecutor nor the judge--discovered his true identity until long after he had been sentenced.

The suspect, as it turned out, was a fugitive from New York who got the lightest prison sentence allowed by California law after he cloaked himself with another man’s name.

Before sentencing, a county probation officer alerted Superior Court Judge Jacqueline A. Connor that he had found at least three distinct criminal histories under the name Greg Dominguez Hammer, court records show. It was unclear, the probation officer reported, which file pertained to the man in custody.

In addition, the probation officer reported to the judge that he had interviewed a friend of the real Greg Hammer who said that the man awaiting sentencing was an imposter. The friend said that he had seen the real Hammer on the street that day.

The judge pronounced sentence anyway. The man purporting to be Hammer--whoever he was, whatever his true criminal record--received the minimum two-year prison sentence for residential burglary after agreeing to plead guilty.

The matter would have faded away if the real Greg Dominguez Hammer had not been arrested on a minor drug charge a few months later.

In routinely checking Hammer’s rap sheet, probation officer Thomas W. Aiken discovered that a “Greg Dominguez Hammer” already was serving time at Chuckawalla Valley State Prison near Blythe. Hammer said that an acquaintance had “demanded” to borrow his temporary driver’s license and apparently assumed Hammer’s identity when arrested.

Aiken said he informed state prison officials in January that the man who had been in their custody for 10 months was not Hammer. Nevertheless, state prison officials in May transferred the mystery man to a work-furlough program in Inglewood. He escaped four days later and a warrant was issued for his arrest.

“For all we know,” Aiken suggested at the time, “this guy could be Jack the Ripper.”

After inquiries by The Times, the Department of Corrections assigned an investigator to find the mystery man. In September, he was traced to the Rikers Island jail in New York, where he had been arrested in August on suspicion of robbery and fighting with a police officer.

His real name was George Chalos, 32, a convicted burglar wanted by New York authorities for deserting parole in 1986.

Connor said she assumed that the district attorney’s office had confirmed the identity of the defendant.

“Generally,” Connor said, “I’m not going to proceed unless I’m satisfied that the D.A. is clear as to who the (defendant) is.” She said she assumed that Chalos was Hammer.

The prosecutor in the case, Deputy Dist. Atty. John Breault III, did not respond to requests for an interview.

How was Chalos able to slip though the system without his true identity being discovered? Easily, The Times found.

When the Police Department arrests a suspect, copies of fingerprints are mailed to the California Department of Justice in Sacramento to confirm the suspect’s identity by comparing fingerprints already on file. However, in the case of Chalos, there were no fingerprints on file because he apparently had not been arrested before in California. In such cases, state officials say they generally assume that the arrestee is who he claims to be. Chalos claimed to be Hammer.

Fingerprints also are sent routinely to the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Washington. Yet even after FBI examination, there is no assurance that the person’s true identity will be discovered, said Everett Stallard, an FBI fingerprints supervisor.

The FBI receives more than 17,000 sets of fingerprints each day, Stallard said. Each card is examined by computer. But about one in three fingerprint cards are of such poor quality, Stallard said, that no match can be made with any of the 26 million fingerprint sets already in the system.

When no match is made, a new FBI file is created under the name of the arrestee described on the card--even if it is not the arrestee’s true name.

“Sometimes,” Stallard said, “those do slip through the cracks.”

The “Greg Dominguez Hammer” fingerprints were of such poor quality that the computer was unable to match them to Chalos’ fingerprints already in FBI files, according to agency spokeswoman Angela Bell. Consequently, she said, the FBI created a new file under the name Greg Hammer.

Even though Chalos’ true identity and criminal history are now known, there are no plans to extradite him, according to special investigator Rick Minares of the California Department of Corrections.

“We’ll let New York handle him,” Minares said. “If there’s a happy ending in any of this, it’s that we know where the jerk is and he’s not going anywhere.”

Fooling the System In 1989 George Chalos (right) was arrested for a burglary, telling authorities he was GregDominquez Hammer (below). Chalos, a wanted fugitive from New York, was able to mask his true identity and received a minimum prison sentence despite questions raised beforehand by a probation officer. Chalos’ true name and criminal history were discovered only after he had escaped from a work furlough program.