Sunland Man Recalls Mexico Nightmare : Prison: Retiree mistaken for an accused tax evader spends nearly two weeks in a Tijuana jail cell. But he’s not bitter.

Joseph (Frank) Goffaux got so cold in his cramped and filthy Tijuana jail cell that he rented a blanket from another prisoner for $3.33.

He went without a shower and slept in the same clothes for 13 days, at times squeezing into a bunk bed with two other men. Inside the Public State Prison, he traded jokes with murderers.

“That’s how they opened up the conversation,” Goffaux joked. “The first thing they asked was who did I kill.”

He can joke about it now. Finally back at his modest house in Sunland, Goffaux on Friday recounted how his resemblance to a Canadian fugitive led to his arrest and nearly two weeks of anxiety and uncertainty.

On June 1 the 58-year-old retired engineering professor was nabbed by police at Ibero Americana University in Tijuana and thrown in jail. Police mistook him for William Howard Rogers, who faces 20 counts of tax evasion and owes $3 million in back taxes in Canada. Rogers was rumored to be hiding out and teaching computer classes in Mexico.

Like Rogers, Goffaux is tall and balding. He also may have stood out in the crowd, he recalled, because he kept walking past the police station, which is not far from the university.

When police explained his arrest, Goffaux denied he was Rogers and explained that he was in Tijuana working on a clean water project and visiting friends. He even produced his passport.

But police demanded further proof. Passports, they said, could be a counterfeit.

Hours after his arrest, his wife, Carole, and daughter, Teresa, heard Goffaux’s frantic voice on their answering machine: “They have me in jail for somebody I’m not and something I didn’t do.”

Carole and Teresa said they scrambled to find birth certificates, copies of college degrees and any other type of identification to send as proof of Goffaux’s U.S. citizenship.

Carole Goffaux rushed to Tijuana and visited her husband in jail, able only to make out his image through a steel grill. She had feared for his life, she said, after “hearing horror stories about Mexican police beating up on prisoners.”

For the last two years a Van Nuys man, Joe Amado, has crusaded on behalf of his brother, Mario Amado, who was found hanged in a Rosarito jail in 1992. A Mexican police officer has been arrested and charged with the slaying.

Goffaux said guards did not abuse him, but he had to make do with only a spare pair of pants and shirt that were in his briefcase. He complained to guards about poor ventilation and the lack of sunlight in his cell. The complaints went nowhere. A friend who heard of his arrest brought him fresh drinking water, since the jail water was so terrible.

Representatives from the American consul general’s office in Tijuana said they visited Goffaux in prison after his arrest and counseled him and his wife, gathering up photos and identification to send to Canadian officials. After seeing the photos, the Canadians realized Goffaux was not the right man and requested his release.

Jail officials acknowledged the mistake, Goffaux said, but said they could not release him until they received the official nod from the Tijuana district attorney.

“I was given so many false promises,” he said. “They told me a few dozen times that they were going to let me go.”

Finally, the district attorney ordered his release--Wednesday night. Around 9 p.m. he was turned loose, left to wander the streets of Tijuana. Having worked there in the past, he knew where to catch a bus that took him to the border. He called home, caught a Greyhound bus in San Diego and arrived back in Downtown Los Angeles about 6 a.m. Thursday.

But even now, after acknowledging their mistake, the Mexican government has yet to offer an apology to the former Cal Poly Pomona engineering professor. Police and Tijuana officials could not be reached for comment.

He said he is not bitter, although he intends to file a complaint about the Mexican government’s handling of the case.

“It might create some hard feelings,” he said about filing the complaint. “But what the heck? They kept me for two weeks longer than they should have. I just want them to pay my legal fees. I am not angry at the Mexican government or the Mexican people. I can forgive and forget.”