Man says suspect stole his identity

Las Vegas police believe they have the right man in jail for last week’s deadly Luxor bombing. They just have the wrong name.

A Panamanian businessman, Omar Rueda-Denvers, said Friday that one of the men charged with murder in last week’s fatal blast is really a Guatemalan immigrant named Alexander Perez.

“I am the true Omar Rueda-Denvers,” he said in Spanish during a phone interview from Panama City.

Las Vegas police arrested two men last week in connection with the May 7 bombing that killed 24-year-old Willebaldo Dorantes Antonio after his shift at Nathan’s Famous hot dogs in the Luxor food court. Authorities identified the men as Porfirio Duarte Herrera, a 27-year-old Nicaraguan, and Omar Rueda-Denvers, a 31-year-old Panamanian.

Two of the 31-year-old suspect’s ex-girlfriends told police his name was Alexander Perez, but he was booked as Rueda-Denvers. Police acknowledged Friday that the Rueda-Denvers in jail isn’t really Rueda-Denvers.

“It’s the right person. However, we don’t know his identity,” said officer Jose Montoya, a police spokesman.

Investigators were heading to Panama to try to sort out who’s who, he said.

The story about the bombing and arrests was big news in Panama, said Jahiro Polo, a reporter for the El Siglo newspaper in Panama City.

“It’s not one of those things that happens every day — a person plants a bomb in a casino and uses the name of a Panamanian,” he said.

The real Rueda-Denvers, 42, was leafing through El Siglo on Sunday when he read the story of the bombing. Accompanying the story was a familiar face and an even more familiar name.

Rueda-Denvers recognized one of the two men in the suspects’ mug shots as Perez, a former employee who once dated his nanny. But beneath Perez’s photo was Rueda-Denvers’ name.

In 2003, Rueda-Denvers’ wife hired a Guatemalan woman to care for their 4-year-old daughter. Her boyfriend, Perez, later took a job with one of Rueda-Denvers’ companies, he said.

Perez claimed to be trained as a civil engineer and did flooring work for him from about June to December 2003, Rueda-Denvers said.

He said he hadn’t heard from Perez since then.

Rueda-Denvers doesn’t know how his identity was stolen, but the nanny could have taken his government ID while working in his home, he said. Or Perez could have copied his identification documents when he worked for him, Rueda-Denvers said.

The episode has been a source of amusement to his friends, he said.

“Jokes and jokes and jokes,” he said.

But with 300 employees under his charge, he said, he’s been “very worried because my name has been stolen.”

Rueda-Denvers said he has sent documents to U.S. officials to prove the man they’ve accused of murder is using his name. He’s also gone to the Panamanian media to clear his name.

“The media has been the best at helping me,” he said.