Orange County Criminal Attorney Blog

Children in foster care across the country suffer from identity theft in alarming numbers. Children in general have a higher risk of identity theft than adults, according to a recent Forbes article, but foster children face an even greater risk because of their often vulnerable position. As many as 30% of foster children may become identity theft victims. Since children tend not to have credit cards or mortgages in their names, their Social Security numbers offer a blank slate for opportunistic thieves. Even worse, children usually do not learn about how their information has been compromised until they become adults and try to obtain credit. This can prevent foster children, who have often endured substantial hardship already, from enjoying many of the privileges of adulthood.

Identity theft among foster children presents a problem from the standpoint of criminal law. Foster children often come from troubled family situations with few resources. They may find themselves saddled not only with huge amounts of debt they cannot pay, but with other contractual obligations and little understanding of what happened and what they must do. Without careful handling of a victim's personal information, a foster child could face unforeseen penalties for acts committed by the identity thief.

Foster children aging out of the system and discovering the theft for the first time often discover massive unpaid bills, credit cards, and utilities in their names. The perpetrators are often known to the victim, including family members needing access to credit. Researchers looking into this problem also found wrongdoing by some foster parents and child welfare workers, as well as simple errors in credit reporting. Los Angeles child welfare workers reviewed credit reports for over 2,000 foster children in their system and found significant problems in the reports for 5% of the children. The average account balance was $1,811, and one child had a $217,000 mortgage.

A new federal law, signed by President Obama in September, requires state officials to run credit checks on foster children who are nearing age 18, at which point they leave the care of the state's child welfare agency. The law also requires child welfare officials to help foster children repair credit problems that turn up on the credit search. This may include negotiating or resolving debts incurred by the identity thief and removing false information from the credit file.

Continue reading "Preventing Identity Theft Among Foster Children" »

A man and woman arrested in Bellingham, Washington on multiple counts of mail theft managed to get away with their alleged crimes for quite some time because, according to police, they were very "obvious" about the thefts, reports KIRO TV. In effect, they were so obvious, acting as though they had every right to open mailboxes and even going so far as driving a truck with a flashing orange light on top, that they managed to evade suspicion for about two months. Their case demonstrates how easily identity theft can affect unsuspecting people, and how it can affect people in California in unexpected ways.

Bellingham police had received a dozen reports of stolen mail since early August. They arrested the woman on Tuesday, October 4 and booked her for investigation into theft, identity theft, and criminal impersonation. The man was picked up for a driving offense. Police searched a residence linked to the woman and found bags of mail as well as electronics and other items they suspected were stolen in burglaries. Investigators believe that the pair would steal credit cards and checks out of the mail, use them to purchase big-ticket items, and then return the goods for cash the following day. The total amount of damage allegedly caused is still not known, nor have police given a total number of alleged victims.

This Orange County Criminal Attorney Blog has previously written about a situation in Georgia where fraudulent state tax returns held up nearly $41 million in refunds and caused many identity theft victims to incur tax bills through no fault of their own. This case in Washington could have a similar effect, leading to possible further financial harm or even criminal trouble down the road.

Identity theft can affect Californians in several ways. The California Office of Privacy Protection estimates that 54% of identity thefts in the U.S. involve the victim's credit or debit card accounts, while another 14% involved other accounts like bank accounts. The potential financial impact is therefore great.

Another possible effect of identity theft, comprising as much as 31% of all cases, involves association of a stolen identity with someone who has a criminal record. This potentially causes someone's name to be associated with a criminal history that the person does not have. This can not only affect credit applications and job prospects, but it carries substantial risk if the person finds themselves subject to a background check by law enforcement--during a traffic stop, for example.

Continue reading "Washington Couple Succeeds at Mail Theft by "Being Obvious"" »

Government officials have uncovered nearly 52,000 fraudulent tax returns in Georgia in 2010. The Director of the State Revenue Department-Office of Special Investigations says this type of crime is becoming very prevalent. This 52,000 is up from 29,000 in 2009 and they still do not know how much of it they are catching. Nearly 41 million dollars in refunds are being held up.

Many taxpayers do not know they have been a victim until it is too late. Before one taxpayer could file his 2010 taxes, he received a bill from the IRS in the amount of $3,400. The defrauded taxpayer had learned his social security number had been stolen. This theft not only prevented him from filing his return, but actually put him in debt as well.

People who commit this type of crime usually use stolen social security numbers or bank information. However, some unscrupulous tax preparers have been known to use client information to commit tax frauds. The Office of the U.S. Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration has recently required all professional tax preparers to register with the Treasury Department by 2014.

It is important for taxpayers to be very wary when dealing with anyone who claims to be from the IRS or anyone who calls and asks for confidential information, especially social security numbers. It is also a good idea for people to seek quality referrals to tax preparers. Criminals who conduct these types of scams are experts at getting confidential information, so it is important to carefully guard all of your sensitive information.

Leon Walker has been charged with a felony for looking at his wife's Gmail on her home laptop. Mr. Walker used her password to access the Gmail because of his suspicion she was having an affair. Apparently, his wife was having an affair with her first husband, a man who had previously been arrested for beating her in front of her child, and fearing for the safety of her child, Mr. Walker turned the Gmail over to the child's father. Mr. and Mrs. Walker subsequently divorced.

The statutes used in the present prosecution are usually reserved for identity theft cases. This appears to be the first time these charges have been filed in this manner.

This case shows the typical type of aggressive prosecution in America today. This appears to be a form of job security for government prosecutors seeking evermore crimes against evermore people. There is a legal saying that "ignorance is no excuse for breaking the law." This may have been true when the Penal Code was 50 pages long; however, now that my desktop Penal Code is almost 1700 pages long, not counting the Vehicle Code, Business and Professions Code or Welfare and Institutions Code sections, this may no longer be the case. Couple all of these laws with an overzealous prosecutor and nearly any type of human endeavor can be a violation of some code or statute.

Once a whole new type of crime is created, we will need a whole new type of police force to monitor it. Moreover, it is likely ever greater intrusions into people's lives will result. In short, more and more laws equal fewer and fewer rights. Before the wheels of criminal justice began to move in this case, someone should have advised the alleged victim to proceed with some type of civil action so as to spare the criminal justice system the embarrassment of having this kind of refuse take up precious court time.