Slobo Maric, Naturalization Fraud, Florida 2023

Ex-Bosnian Army Guard Sentenced for Naturalization Fraud

A former Bosnian Army prison guard was sentenced to 18 months in prison for unlawfully procuring U.S. citizenship by failing to disclose his membership in the Bosnian Army and crimes he committed during the Bosnian Conflict in the 1990s.

Slobo Maric, 56, of Jacksonville, Florida, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Marcia Morales Howard of the Middle District of Florida, who also ordered his U.S. citizenship revoked.

According to the plea agreement, in 1993, Maric served as a shift leader at a detention facility in Bosnia that housed captured Bosnian-Croat soldiers. Many of the guards in the facility subjected detainees to serious physical abuse and humiliation. Maric selected detainees for abuse, directly participated in abusing several prisoners, and sent prisoners on dangerous work details.

Maric knew about the Bosnian court proceedings, but failed to disclose them and lied about his conduct on his application for U.S. citizenship. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen on October 31, 2002.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Jacksonville Field Office investigated the case under the supervision of the HSI Tampa Field Office, with support from ICE’s Human Rights Violators and War Crimes Center.

Maric pleaded guilty on July 18, 2016, to one count of unlawful procurement of naturalization. Trial Attorney Clayton O’Connor and Historian David Rich of the Criminal Division’s Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Dale Campion of the Middle District of Florida, prosecuted the case.

The case highlights the importance of thorough background checks and the consequences of hiding one’s past.

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