Angel Luis Carrasco-Rivera, Perjury, Pennsylvania 2024

Lancaster County man Angel Luis Carrasco-Rivera, 54, admitted in federal court today that he lied under oath about a decades-old drug trafficking conviction, further deepening his spiral into federal crime. The man, also known as Manuel Calcagno, pleaded guilty to perjury before Chief U.S. District Judge Christopher C. Conner, exposing a calculated cover-up during sentencing for a separate mail fraud scheme.

Carrasco-Rivera was already convicted in 2016 of mail fraud after stealing more than $102,000 in unemployment benefits from Pennsylvania between 2008 and late 2012. He was sentenced to 18 months in prison for that crime. But federal prosecutors say he never came clean about his true criminal past, even as it directly influenced how lightly he was sentenced.

That past includes a 1991 conviction in Massachusetts for drug trafficking under the alias Manuel Calcagno. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison for that offense—information he deliberately omitted from his presentence report. By failing to correct the court’s record, Carrasco-Rivera manipulated the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, securing a lower advisory range than he otherwise would have received.

When confronted by the court about the glaring omission, Carrasco-Rivera didn’t fess up—he doubled down. Under oath, he fabricated a story about how he became linked to the name Calcagno, feeding false testimony to the very system he’d already defrauded. That lie is what ultimately led to the perjury charge.

The case was cracked open by investigators with the U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Inspector General, Office of Labor Racketeering and Fraud Investigations. Assistant U.S. Attorney James T. Clancy is handling the prosecution, underscoring the federal government’s tightening grip on benefit fraud and judicial deception.

Carrasco-Rivera now faces up to five years in federal prison, a term of supervised release, and a fine. No sentencing date has been set. The case serves as a stark warning: lie to the court, and the penalty comes twice—once for the crime, once for the cover-up.

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