A Louisiana woman used a man's stolen identity for almost two years in order to keep her housekeeping job at a Marriott hotel in Montgomery Township

Of all the odd twists in the way people use (or more properly, misuse) identity-related information, this one has to be one of the weirdest!

Julia Perez, a 37-year-old suspected illegal immigrant from Mexico, used the name, Social Security number and birth date of a Louisiana man in order to get a housekeeping job at the Courtyard Marriott Hotel in Montgomery Township.

Perez began working at the hotel in August 2008, and apparently worked in the position for nearly two years before she was arrested at the hotel on June 9th. It seems that someone would have noticed that Julia, who wore a name tag showing “Tomie,” as her name (a shortened version of the identity theft victim's first name – Thomas) was decidedly female, while her employment documents all contained the information of a male.

Perez has admitted to using the Louisiana man's name to gain employment, records said. How exactly she obtained the identity was not clear from Police and court records.

The deception began to unravel after the Internal Revenue Service informed the Louisiana man that his identity was being used by someone else – he then contacted the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff's Department, which launched an investigation and traced the identity theft to an employee that was ultimately identified as Perez.

Perez is currently being held in a Montgomery County Prison on a first-degree misdemeanor charge of identity theft. U.S. Immigration Customs & Enforcement has also placed a detainer on her, meaning federal authorities suspect she is in the United States illegally. Once she is released, whether after serving a sentence for identity theft or after an acquittal, she will be turned over to the I.N.S., who will then determine if she is here illegally. If she is, she will most likely then be deported.