The homeless man who was shot and killed by Los Angeles police officers Sunday on skid row was a convicted bank robber who assumed the identity of a French man to enter the United States more than 15 years ago, according to records and interviews.
Axel Cruau, the French consul general in Los Angeles, told The Times the man identified as Charley Saturmin Robinet was not a French citizen. Rather, the man had stolen another man’s identity and gotten a French passport to come to the U.S. in the late-1990s, Cruau said.
French officials discovered the identity theft after the man who called himself Robinet was convicted of a bank robbery in 2000 and U.S. officials were preparing to deport him. Cruau said French officials notified U.S. officials that Robinet was not the man’s real name, but said he did not know what happened after that.
The real Charley Saturmin Robinet “is alive and in France,” he said
Law enforcement sources said Monday that police had identified Charley Saturmin Robinet as the man shot by officers during a confrontation Sunday that was captured on videotape.
