BOARDMAN — Charges have been dropped against a man accused of forgery at the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, but he now faces deportation from the country.

A news release issued Tuesday from the Mahoning County Prosecutor’s Office states that Prosecutor Lynn Maro has dropped the charges against Diego Lopez Gomez of using illegal documents to obtain a state ID in order to allow the U.S. Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement to expedite the deportation process.

“Given ICE’s jurisdiction over immigration-related offenses and Gomez’s apparent unlawful status in the United States, the Mahoning County Prosecutor’s Office dismissed the state forgery charges to allow federal immigration authorities to handle the matter,” the release states.

“Our office prioritizes the effective use of resources and ensuring cases are handled by the appropriate authorities,” Maro said. “Given that it was a nonviolent offense and a low-level offense, it made abundant sense to let them proceed with the deportation.”

When police arrived at the BMV office on Boardman-Canfield Road in late January, employees said the man — later identified as Gomez — tried to obtain an Ohio ID card using a counterfeit Social Security card and United States permanent resident card.

The police report states that the Social Security card, when run through a database serving all 50 states, INTERPOL and other agencies, did not correspond with the name Gomez gave at the time. The permanent resident card did not return any results.

The report states that the Social Security card and residence card both lacked distinguishing characteristics of authentic cards, which made them easily detectable for BMV employees and police. A BMV investigator arrived and confirmed the cards were fakes.

The report states that a BMV employee translated in Spanish for police because Gomez spoke very little English. Gomez told police he works at a local Mexican restaurant. He provided police with a paystub and W-2 for that business, and those documents showed an address on Water Street in Poland.

The report states he was arrested on a charge of forgery, a fifth-degree felony. Gomez’s identity could not be determined at the time, and he was booked into the Mahoning County jail as John Doe.