Criminal Identity Theft

Suppose you are pulled over by a police officer for a minor traffic violation.  What if the officer takes your identification and calls it in for the routine check and returns to place you under arrest for failure to appear in court for a previous traffic violation?  What if the warrant is for armed robbery, burglary, sexual assault, or possession of drugs?   And the scariest part of all:  What if you did nothing wrong and it is a mistake?  What would you do?

A definition of criminal identity theft is when an imposter uses your name when arrested or being investigated for criminal activity.  The identity thief may have access to your Social Security number, driver’s license number, home address, and/or date of birth.  Some thieves even create counterfeit documents such as Social Security cards, driver’s licenses, or passports.

Criminal identity theft consists of a crime having been committed with the perpetrator using someone else’s identification to law enforcement.  They may even go as far as entering a guilty plea in court.  Once an identity is tarnished, criminal identity thieves are likely to find another unblemished identity to steal and use in other criminal activities. 

Victims of criminal identity theft may not even be aware of their situation for many years.  Often it is discovered when the victim is applying for a job or has a job that requires a criminal background check.  Of course, this creates likely employment issues for the victim in addition to having the stress of clearing their good name

A local man was completely unaware that he was a victim of criminal identity theft until two weeks ago, when he received a letter from the local elections office to inform him that he was no longer eligible to vote, due to being a convicted felon.  As of this writing, he still has not gotten it completely resolved.

In another local situation, a man received a letter from the IRS that he owed taxes from 2006.  He had all his tax returns and had actually paid in 2006.  Once investigated, it turned out that his identity had been used by a migrant who was in the country illegally and had worked at a company in a nearby town.  Of course, by the time this was discovered, the perpetrator was long gone, but it did leave a mess for the victim to resolve.

Criminal identity theft is a bit like financial identity theft in that the victims have the stress and burden of clearing their name of a mess they did not make.  You must act quickly to begin the restoration process and to try to keep the damage from spreading and further impacting your life.  A couple of things to note that complicate this is that only officials within the criminal justice system can correct any data in your criminal file.  Unfortunately, there is no specific standard for doing this.  Another complication is that most times, more than one law enforcement jurisdiction is involved and the complication then becomes which jurisdiction is actually responsible for handling the situation.  There are no guidelines for law enforcement in the event that your identity is stolen in one state and a crime is committed in another. 

Regardless, if you discover that you are a victim of criminal identity theft, it is critical that you contact your local police department and obtain a police report.  The police report will help validate your claim of identity theft to other jurisdictions and even employers.  You should also contact an attorney for assistance with clearing your name.  

I hope this article was helpful and enlightening.  As always, questions and comments are more than welcome.