East Tennessee Illegal Alien Facing Charges For Voting Illegally & Stealing U.S. Citizen’s Identity For Decades

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Article by Paula Gomes, Tennessee Conservative News –

According to the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Tennessee, a Canadian man masquerading under the identity of a United States citizen since the 1980s has been indicted.

A federal grand jury in Knoxville returned an eleven-count indictment last month against 67-year-old Gregory Allan Porter, a Canadian, who assumed the identity of “Tony Wayne Ortiz” around 1984 after entering the U.S. unlawfully.

Porter, who was living in Sevierville, is facing charges relating to false statements in a passport application, aggravated identity theft, misuse of a passport, falsely claiming U.S. citizenship, misuse of a social security number and voting as an alien.

Appearing in court before U.S. Magistrate Judge Jill E. McCook on October 30th, 2026, Porter entered a plea of not guilty to the charges and was detained pending trial, set for early next year before U.S. District Judge Katherine A. Crytzer in Knoxville’s U.S. District Court.

Porter lived and worked in the U.S. under his assumed identity after fraudulently obtaining a birth certificate, social security number, U.S. passports, and Tennessee driver’s licenses. He was found to have voted in many elections, at the local, state and federal levels, as “Tony Wayne Ortiz.”

If found guilty, Porter could be looking at one to ten years behind bars and an additional one to three years of supervised release. 

According to state law, aggravated identity theft carries a mandatory two-year term which would have to be served consecutively to any other term of imprisonment.

The investigation that led to Porter’s arrest and indictment was the result of a joint effort led by the Department of State and Diplomatic Security Service with help from the Tennessee Highway Patrol, the Oxford Alabama Police Department, Office of Inspector General and the Social Security Administration.

Porter is not the only illegal alien found to have voted in East Tennessee.

At the end of last week, two illegal aliens were arrested and charged for unlawfully voting in federal elections in 2024.

Sources:

Justice.Gov.

WVLT.

About the Author: Paula Gomes is a Tennessee resident and reporter for The Tennessee Conservative. You can reach Paula at paula@tennesseeconservativenews.com.