Sunland Man Recalls Mexico Nightmare : Prison: Retiree mistaken for a tax evader spends nearly two weeks in a cold, cramped 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 home in Sunland, Goffaux on Friday recounted how his resemblance to a Canadian fugitive led to his arrest and nearly two weeks of anxiety.

On June 1, the 58-year-old retired engineering professor from Sunland 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 may also have stood out in the crowd, he recalled, because he kept walking past the police station, which is not far from the university.

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

But police demanded further proof. Passports, they said, can be counterfeited.

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.”

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

Carole visited Goffaux in jail, barely able to make out her husband’s face through a steel grill. She feared for his life, she said, after “hearing horror stories about Mexican police beating up on prisoners.”

Goffaux said guards did not abuse him, but he had to make do with a spare pair of pants and shirt that were in his briefcase. He complained to guards about the poor ventilation and lack of sunlight in the cell, but the complaints went nowhere.

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Representatives from the American Consulate in Tijuana said they visited Goffaux in prison and talked with his wife, gathering up photos and identification to send to Canadian officials. After seeing the photos, the Canadians realized that Goffaux was not the right man and requested his release.

Jail officials acknowledged the mistake, Goffaux said, but told him they could not release him until they received an 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--late Wednesday night. He took a bus home, arriving in Los Angeles about 6 a.m. Thursday.

Although acknowledging their mistake, Mexican officials have yet to offer an apology. Goffaux says he is not bitter, but he intends to file a complaint with the Mexican government. “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.”