HONOLULU (CN) — A man once accused of being a Russian spy continued to dispute who he was on Wednesday in front of a federal judge as she sentenced him for stealing the identity of a dead infant and living under the name for over three decades.
Walter Glenn Primrose, who had been living Bobby Edward Fort since 1987, was sentenced to 34 months for various identity theft and conspiracy charges.
Primrose was convicted in October 2023 for identity theft, passport fraud and conspiracy against the United States alongside his wife, Gwynne Darle Morrison, who used the name Julie Lyn Montague.
Morrison was given the same sentence on Thursday, when she continued to insist that she would never use the Morrison name and would have "100% recidivism" if she was forced to.
"I would rather remain in prison for the rest of my life than use that identity," she said.
During the pair's arrest and leading up to the trial, Primrose and Morrison had been reported as possible Russian spies after a raid on their west Oahu home turned up photographs of the couple in what appeared to be authentic KGB uniforms, along with military maps and coded documents. During the trial, prosecutors ended up discarding the spy angle, and focused on the stolen identities of two infants who died in the 1980s.
Primrose, who has a long history of switching out defense attorneys throughout the proceedings, represented himself at Wednesday's sentencing where he continued to insist he was Fort. Primrose and Morrison had both motioned for name changes prior to sentencing, which were denied by U.S. District Judge Leslie Kobayashi, who nonetheless acknowledged that the couple still consider Fort and Montague to be their "true" names.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Muehleck pushed for a maximum sentence for Primrose and Morrison — 16 months for the conspiracy charges and passport fraud, and 24 months for aggravated identity theft, pointing out that the pair have continued to make false statements about their identities, even during the hearings.
While discussing the pre-sentencing report, Primrose told the court, "I am Bobby Edward Fort, I will not be signing anything that says Walter Glenn Primrose."
In deciding the sentences, Kobayashi acknowledged that the couple had no prior criminal convictions and had financial and educational successes living under their assumed identities, but she echoed Muehleck's concerns about the continued use of the name and called out their lack of remorse.
"I understand that you feel that's who you are in the core your being," Kobayashi told Primrose, "No matter how sincere you believe, that has no place in this sentencing."
Primrose indicated that he would appeal the conviction.
A criminal complaint from 2022 details the probe into Primrose and Morrison’s identities. Records from Texas indicate that the couple attended high school and college together. They were married as Primrose and Morrison in 1980 and then remarried as Fort and Montague eight years later.
An investigation by the U.S. Department of State Diplomatic Security Service indicated that the pair had been living under their assumed names for over 30 years. The infants whose identities were stolen by the pair would have been a full decade younger than true ages of the couple. The couple then applied for Social Security numbers, driver’s licenses and passports under the new names.
Primrose also used the name to enlist in the U.S. Coast Guard in 1994, where he was later able to gain security clearance. Since his retirement from the Coast Guard in 2016 and up to his arrest, Primrose was employed with a Department of Defense contractor.
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