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Identity Thief Apprehended By Victim
ewhac writes "Karen Lodrick was entering her sixth month of hell dealing with the repercussions of having her identity stolen and used to loot her accounts. But while she was waiting for a beverage, there standing in line was the woman who appeared on Wells Fargo security video emptying her accounts. What followed was a 45 minute chase through San Francisco streets that ended with the thief being taken into custody by police."
So... how long before Karen's sued by the thieving bitch for harrasment and stalking...?
It was clear Nelson had targeted her: Lodrick changed bank accounts and identification numbers, only to find that Nelson had again broken into her mail and stolen the new information and was still after her accounts.
Where the hell were the postal service inspectors? The USPS has an entire police force for dealing with this sort of stuff. I can see it now, down at USPS Homedonut Protection Service:
"Hey Billy-Bob, we had a carrier's keys stolen. Think we should do something?"
"Nah, Bo-Billy, we gots terrorists to watch out for."
"But we have a report of identity theft from..."
"T-E-R-R-I-S-T-S. We gots CQB trainin' this afternoon."
She was sentenced by Superior Court Judge Harold Kahn to the 44 days she had already served in county jail and three years' probation.
What about mail fraud? Theft of mail?
Nelson also was ordered to make restitution in an amount to be determined by the court and to stay away from Lodrick.
"Amount to be determined"? How about ALL OF IT?
Those were the terms of a plea bargain negotiated by Assistant District Attorney Reve Bautista with Nelson's public defender, Christopher Hite.
The DA had her on TAPE using someone else's bank account. It was clearly planned and multiple victims were involved. They no doubt could have searched her properties and found the mail, the stolen keys, etc. The goods that were charged either involved her going to stores (where she'd be on camera) or mail order / online, where the goods had to be delivered somewhere (and the cops could have been waiting for her to pick up.)
Why in god's name did they need to plea-bargain? Why does it always seem that to scam artists, identity thieves, and drunk drivers the justice system is a revolving door?
Please help metamoderate.
One of the items stolen from her mailbox in 2006 was a CD statement that included her SSN. Hasn't California (if not other states) banned SSNs on mailed documents for a few years now?
A post a day keeps productivity at bay.
Jesus Christ, get some fucking perspective.
Why not the death penalty? Seriously, what social use is there for anyone who'd commit identity theft? We've filled our jails with potheads - who hurt nobody and subtract nothing from society, indeed include many of our most artistically accomplished people - and yet the penalty for stealing tens of thousands through identity theft, and running the victims through months of hell - is probation? It should be at minimum 20 years in jail.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
Easy to say when you've never been a victim of identity theft. Here's a hint: its a lot worse than having a car or a stereo stolen.
'Lodrick, who made a statement at sentencing, was dissatisfied. "I can't believe it," she said. "I went through six months of hell, and she's going to get probation? She was on probation when she victimized me. Obviously, probation's not helping."'
What the hell? Is she on double secret probation now? Isn't that the point of probation, that you serve your sentence if you break it? I realize it's more important to have violent offenders incarcerated, but recidivist, unapologetic thieves who rack up that kind of bill need to be dealt with.
Problem is jails are expensive, but anything less is no deterrent to people like this. I'm sick of our PC justice system - this person needs something to fear, and I think lashings should play a central role.
The thief took advantage of bank spam:
I don't even have a lock on my mail box and banks send me this crap all the time. Besides being a massive waste of everyone's money, it only takes a few days of intercepting the mail to rob someone.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
It's inexcusable to say that murder is ever an appropriate recourse after crime. But then, I don't support capital punishment. For the simple reason that, as terrible as Identity Theft is, it's not as final as murder.
Of course she could have, this is America. You can sue McDonald's for making you a fat, lazy dumbass! You can sue for cutting your hand on shards of glass from the window you shattered while breaking into someone's house. You can press charges if your idiotic kid falls out of a tree in your neighbor's yard or drowns in their pool while trespassing. Smell that? That's stupidity, it replaced freedom a long time ago in this country.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
It's absurd that anyone that knows your name, date of birth, and SSN can pretend to be you and open up accounts in your name. Banks and credit card companies have to be held accountable for verifying the identities of their customers.
Likewise, credit reporting agencies should be fined a significant amount for evey incorrect item on a person't credit report with the full fine going to the individual. We need to incentivize the financial services industry to take care of the mess they've largely created.
Finally, probation for a repeat offender guilty of identity theft, mail fraud, theft of mail, theft by deception, and violation of existing probabtion? Give me a break. She should have gotten 10 years in jail, a 6 figure fine, and been made to pay full restitution.
Great, your sister would jeopardized the life of everyone else in that starbucks.
Oh, and if the person ran away and got shot in the back? The best case scenario, going to trial. even if found innocent, her life would be turned upside down. Time in jail, attorneys, bail.
Yeah, good thinking.
Even in Texas, if you can not convince people you felt your life was threatened you go to jail for killing people. Granted, what it takes to feel you life is immediately threatened is looser then in most states.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Funny, TFA alluded to the idea of a "legal system" to punish the girl with something called "probation", which apparently involves being scolded and then set free. According to TFA, it was at least the second time this "legal system" had to impose this severe penalty.
Global warming is a cube.
Not to mention if she was mistaken and it wasn't the perp (for all she knew the jacket could've been sold or given away by the orignal crook) and now SHE is the criminal for assault.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Oh really? According to *you*, and certainly many other people. But don't go around parading like what you said is some kind of absolute truth, unless you're willing to back it up with adequate proof.
So you're a moral relativist?
Yes, the whole "I'd kill them and dump the body for stealing from me" thing is kind of ridiculous- certainly if you were really going to do that, you wouldn't set a precedent by talking about it online!
But really, think out the consequences of that. Killing this person means harsh consequences for yourself, which are probably worse than having to deal with identify theft (jail time, prison rape, etc.) And it's not like you won't be picked up as a suspect, you know? it's pretty obvious you would be someone they might look at for the crime.
Yes, the thief is human trash, and it might be better off for society as a whole to have her gone. On the other hand, a trial and locking her up costs us all a bunch of money- I don't really know what the best solution is, but it's not just killing her nor is it giving her another round of probation. I don't think locking her up at the taxpayer's expense forever is a good thing either.
Somehow, a punishment/rehabilitation that forces this person to be broken and rebuild themselves from scratch is probably best- fixing them as a person, rather than keeping around a broken shell of a person that drags on us all. You could argue that eliminating them saves this problem too, but then we're no better than savage animals, and what's the point of doing anything then?
My car was broken in to the other day and it pissed me off something fierce- but the worst part was the expense of having windows replaced, not anything that was actually stolen. That's a lesson: the actual incident itself is much smaller than the collateral damage and cost that surrounds it. I would have just given them the contents of the car if they really needed it that badly. I was angry, then sad for who these people must be, then frustrated I couldn't do anything to fix the situation. I can get windows replaced, but these people have empty holes in their lives, and that's just not easy to fix no matter what you do.
Sorry for the rambling rant.
EOM
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
[i]So you're a moral relativist?[/i] How could any responsible and culturally literate individual not be somewhat of a relativist? Given that there is never any absolutes and no action has any inherent meaning, it's time we stepped out of the dark ages.
I'm not saying we should go around killing people for petty crimes, or even murder, but there are a lot of sociopaths and absolute shitbags that only leech off society. You can, maybe, rehabilitate the shitbags, but the sociopaths I'm not so sure about.
She stole mail. She stole keys from the federal government postal employee. Mail fraud? This worthless sack of shit should get 20 years of HARD time, split between state and federal pens!
Of course, being able to steal master keys for the mailboxes is not good either, but WTF is the bank thinking??? I can't shred stuff if it is intercepted before I go to my friggin' mail box!
9 times?
And she's destroyed how many people's lives?
And she's put on probation again?
What are they thinking in California?
This is one of the reasons we need to legalize marijuana. So we can put real criminals in jail.
Sounds like they make everyone a criminal so they can't put anyone in jail.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
The jails are mostly full, the incarceration rate in the US is much higher per population than most other western nations. What I've never understood is that people get jailed for personal use of drugs (abuse to themselves), whereas crimes like identity theft (abuse to others) result in multiple probations and no meaningful consequences -- which has a worse societal effect?
John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
Yes, the whole "I'd kill them and dump the body for stealing from me" thing is kind of ridiculous
One of the most idiotic things that I hear people say all the time is "what they would do"
if somthing had happened to them. 99.9% of the time they really would NOT do that, and would
probably urinate or defecate themselves instead. It is also dismissive of what really happened, what
we are allowed to do, and what we would allow ourselves to do. This is why we applaud people with
the guts to really DO something and not just say it, or some imagined hyperbolic version of "what they would do if..."
Not only did she do something extremely brave, but she did it the right way.
Good going !
music lover since 1969
I have never understood why the opinion of the victim is considered to be more important than that of an objective observer. The victim is emotionally attatched to the crime and clearly not in the best position to properly consider the extremely complex moral and ethical problems.
All the victim knows that an observer with the facts to hand does not is how the crime made them feel - the emotional damage may of course be immense - but I do not see why this should have any impact on the punishment of the criminal. Afterall, the punishment of the criminal will have knock-on effects - they may have a family and children for example. I think it would be no more nor less just for the family of the criminal to go and shoot the person who shot the criminal. Both actions are understandable. As, in fact, is the original crime; whatever it is, it was committed for a reason - not necessarily a good reason, but what a good reason is is subjective. For this reason we have a system in place to ensure that everyone is treated fairly and private retribution is not necessary.
The Baton Rouge story is interesting, though I cannot help but notice the main point in its favour appears to be "that's justice at minimal cost to the public." I remain extremely skeptical of the notion that the financial cost of justice should ever be a consideration when deciding what system to adopt.
Tomorrow, I may eat another house plant
Given that there is never any absolutes
Are you absolutely sure of this? This statement assumes that itself is true, no?
For the simple reason that, as terrible as Identity Theft is, it's not as final as murder.
s/Idenitity Theft/rape/ and then say that women being raped should submit rather than kill the attacker if possible.
Ultimately your problem is saying that killing a person is always "murder" when its not. It is not murder to kill someone in self defense. Whether they are stealing property or inflicting violence on you, i believe that as humans we have the right to defend ourselves with whatever means we deem necessary.
Maybe you don't like that, maybe you think that victims have to sacrifice their rights to protect those who violate them. One thing is certain the more I hear this kind of nonsense the more annoyed I get at exactly how "politically correct" we've become.
The parent was on the phone near the walkway in the airport when he shot the instructor point blank in the head. That's justice at minimal cost to the public.
That's not justice, that's revenge, plain and simple. Justice includes following our own laws... if we can't even do that, I don't think we can claim to be very civilized.
I agree with the death penalty, but only in cases of 100% certainty. The only problem is you never really know that the police (or whoever) aren't planting evidence to frame an innocent person. There are far too many times this has actually happened...
I think executing an innocent man is far worse, and its the main reason I can't support the death penalty. Nothing is worth that cost. Right now, that cost is pretty high.. there have been an alarming amount of such cases.
Also, I doubt you can ever be 100% certain of anything. I don't think I could convict someone of anything and be 100% certain, I'd always have some doubt. I would hope any reasonable person would.
I certainly don't want to sit on my hands while some asshole carries my stereo out the front door, but if you shoot somebody to protect property, as opposed to protecting another person, or your own life, then you've essentially just killed someone for the sake of that piece of property. Do you really think that's a reasonable course of action, regardless of what value you'd place on that particular thief's life? And where do you draw the line? Is it cool to shoot somebody for stealing your plasma TV, but not for stealing your kid's bike? Justice is about restraint: restraint of those who would hurt other people for their own benefit AND restraint of those who would otherwise lash out in righteous anger. And this, of course, is a matter totally separate from defense of one's self.
If someone breaks into my home and even THINKS of harming my family....
The parent was on the phone near the walkway in the airport when he shot the instructor point blank in the head.
Those two situations aren't even remotely related. The first one presents an immediate threat to you and/or your family (if someone is willing to break in to your home, it's reasonable to assume they're willing to break other laws, too...though even then, you should exercise care and only actually kill the person if you're certain they present a real threat, if you can subdue them safely until the police arrive, so much the better). The parent who killed the guy at the airport was simply a vigilante: the person was already in custody and on the way to a trial, it's not appropriate to take the law into your own hands in a case like that.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
"You could argue that eliminating them saves this problem too, but then we're no better than savage animals, and what's the point of doing anything then?"
That is absolutely wrong. A savage animal thinks about the moment. it does not think about the future, and the surrounding facts. When faced with an invader that is taking their resources, a savage animal is just as happy to have the invader run away as it is to kill the invader. The problem is that savage animals are stupid, and they don't understand that if they don't permanently take care of the problem, they will be faced with the same problem again later. So, in reality, the path that you suggest is the one of a savage animal. Only thinking of the moment.
"I would have just given them the contents of the car if they really needed it that badly."
You are clearly just rationalizing. I don't believe for a second that you truly believe that just because someone steals from you, that they must 'need it badly'. The guy that stole your stereo didn't need it. He just realized that he could take it from you, and there was nothing you could do about it. Assuming that someone who robs you is the victim is pretty sick, and you might want to seek help with that.
There's no state in the union that I know of that allows an armed citizen to pull a firearm in this kind of instance. The identity thief is a scumbag, but it's not a qualifying event to use deadly force for. Certainly, it's not worth losing a permit over (at the minimum).
In the scenario you highlight, the third party is the only one who has a right to draw, presumably for the protection of a third party. Also from the training I received, once you unholster a firearm in such a scenario, you should already be prepared to shoot. I don't think most people are prepared to do that.
// Agent Green (Ian / IU7 / KB1JQO)
// IEEE 802.3: All 10base Are Belong To Us
I certainly don't want to sit on my hands while some asshole carries my stereo out the front door, but if you shoot somebody to protect property, as opposed to protecting another person, or your own life, then you've essentially just killed someone for the sake of that piece of property.
Whats at stake is more than my stereo or my TV or my kid's bike. What's at stake is my right to peacably own property. What's at stake is the rule of law in our free society. While on the outside its easy to say that a persons life is worth more than a TV, is a person's life worth more that the rights a criminal had to violate in order to take the TV? It is most definitely not.
A criminal is not just taking a TV from me, they are taking away my rights of property ownership. As long as we accept that a criminal is the victim when a burglary goes bad then we have no property rights, and essentially no rights at all since most rights descend from the concept of ownership.
But go ahead condone a criminals actions, tell him its ok by saying if a victim hurts you sue him, send him to jail. The world you want to live in is the one where criminals rob you all day because they know you are too weak and afraid to defend yourself. The rule of law is not just what the government does, but what free citizens do to uphold the law and that includes defending themselves from crime, and in turn making crime more difficult and unattractive to people who would normally become criminals.
My post office has a sign that says something like "Valid signature required on all credit cards; 'Check ID' no good". My credit card is not signed on the back, and they, along with every other store, accepted it without checking.
Only to a point. I'm willing to bet that very few criminals ever go through the hassle of pulling off credit card fraud once
Sure, for a single $250 charge, there's very little benefit. But if that person may be doing it with ten different cards. And that person may be willing to name an accomplice, or reveal the hole they are using to get names and numbers. Chances are, they'd be saving a lot more than just $250.
Hell, can you imagine the PR on the commercials by getting their customer to talk about how the credit card company rode in like an avenging angel and smote the identity thief who made them feel scared, and unsafe? How many hours the customer spent changing credit card numbers, and trying to clean up their credit rating? And how the credit card company was willing to do this over a simple $50 charge?
You have obviously never been burgled. It's even more obvious that if you have, you weren't home when it happened. The fear and degradation of not being able to protect yourself, your family, or your home will haunt you for the rest of your life. You may never sleep well again.
"Some asshole" who has the balls to walk in your front door and carry out your stereo in front of you is just as likely to tie you up and put a bullet in your head to prevent you from talking about it. You aren't shooting someone to prevent your property from being stolen: you're shooting someone to prevent them from doing something other than just stealing your property. If they have violated the sanctity of your home, the step to violating your right to life is not too far off.
Right on. For a darkly humourous exploration of this theme, check out John Hargrave's 'How crazy would I have to make my signature before someone would actually notice?' prank at:
http://www.zug.com/pranks/credit/
The answer? Pretty freakin' crazy, and still no-one notices anyway.
[17] Leary, T., White, C., Wood, P. R., Bhabha, W. D., and Wirth, N. Lambda calculus considered harmful. In Proceedings
Here's the problem with this scenario for gun owners (like me.)
If I feel the criminal is a threat to my family, I can fire away as long as they remain a threat. If I happen to wake in the middle of a home robbery and the criminals attempt to immediately flee without presenting a threat to my family, but they don't drop the loot - firing is a bad option. You have to accept you lost your shit.
The way I look at it is this. if it doesn't breathe - I don't kill over it.
I'm a victim of violent crime, missing one eye due to a mugging and I've forgiven my attackers. I would protest any form of capital punishment for them. I would oppose capitol punishment for much worse crimes than the one perpetrated against me. Two wrongs don't make a right, and a killing for a kidnapping or rape is not justice. It is revenge.
Revenge is a sickness that hurts the perpetrator. Failure to forgive creates a cancer of the mind. The mind becomes obsessed with the perception of wrong, and replays the painful event over and over again, causing the victim additional unnecessary suffering. The lack of perceived justice causes pain. Only through forgiveness is the pain alleviated. People who murder people who have done them wrong do not generally get any long term relief from the act.
Now, killing in self defense is another matter. Failing to kill someone who is going to kill you can make a powerful moral statement, but only if people know about it and know it was on purpose. Otherwise, it's your life or theirs, and they forced the question, so why not theirs? But killing for revenge is wrong on many levels. It hurts the original victim and does not provide real justice. It weakens the rule of law and undermines the trust we all need to place in society. It is bad for the victim, the perpetrator, and society and provides no benefit to anyone.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
What's at stake is my right to peacably[sic] own property. ...snip..
...snip..
A criminal is not just taking a TV from me, they are taking away my rights of property ownership.
condone a criminals actions
Believe it or not, the criminal is not taking away your rights of property ownership. They are violating your rights, sure, but that's why we have a justice system in the first place.
Here's the deal: Your property rights do not trump the right of another to life. That's it. You are not Judge-fucking-Dredd. You don't get to execute people who you think have wronged you. By the same token, should you stand by idly while someone breaks into your house and makes off with your TV? No, odds are that in confronting the thief they will show intent to harm you, at which point you are defending your own life. On the flip side, if you confront someone and they run empty handed, are you in the right when you shoot them dead in the back? Good luck with that.
This in no way condones the criminal's act. The thief should be arrested, serve their time for breaking the law and compensate the victim for whatever loss they caused. If you think all that is served by just executing every thief out there, seek help.
Yes, it was condecending, but then so was the GPP when he called anyone bright enough to see past right now a savage animal. The GPP also is exactly the kind of attitude that promotes crime. He did very clearly make the thief out to be the "victim". The GPP, and you, are trying to make out this criminal as some poor sole, who had to break into a car and steal a stereo just to have a loaf of bread to eat. Well, that is highly unlikely. More likely is that the thief only had a TV in the living room, and wanted enough money to put a second one in his bedroom. Or, wanted to go out a party with his pals this Friday, and doesn't get paid until Monday. Playing the 'he must be so poor that he HAS to resort to crime' is absolutely an attempt to make the criminal a victim. So, yes. If someone robs you, and you think that THEY are the victim, you have a mental disorder.
Assuming that someone who robs you is the victim is pretty sick, and you might want to seek help with that.
IAWTP. A few weeks ago, I was jumped, beaten, and robbed while walking home just after sunset and in what's considered a safe part of town. In the space of a few seconds, these two punks had broken my nose, bashed up my mouth bad enough I was eating soft foods for nearly two weeks, and damned near gave me a concussion. And for what? They got a cell phone (cancelled within minutes, not even used by them), my wallet (no cash, credit cards that were cancelled promptly and apparently also not used by them), and an iPod Nano.
I had to change the locks on my house (had a key in my wallet), get new ID and credit cards, buy a new wallet and cell phone, spend time in the hospital, etc. For the damage they did, they gained little - and I can virtually guarantee that it wasn't desperation, but self-centered and sociopathic greed that drove them. I can also virtually guarantee that there's almost certainly no chance of them being caught, and that they are likely never going to change their ways. Society as a whole would be better if they were removed from the population and unable to bring any new thugs into the world.
Karma: Excellent, but still won't get you laid.
I know this won't get modded up much, but I have to say it: Most of the time, the article which is linked from a blog isn't very meaty or involving. This article rose beyond a simple statement of fact and drew me into an exciting story to read. Who doesn't love a good chase? A great read!
I don't see how you can use a "What If . . ." scenario based on a past event, make some blind guesses about how other people might have responded in this hypothetical situation, and then contort your fantasy into an argument against the idea of law abiding citizens carrying firearms.
t ml
I accept your possible(but improbable) scenario as a suggestion that it would have been extremely bad judgment on the part of the ID theft victim to pull a gun in this particular situation. After that, your argument just devolves into foolishness.
Every time the question of liberalizing concealed weapons laws comes up, gun control nuts use these fantasies "Oh heavens, our streets will become like the wild West!" "Minor traffic accidents will end up as gun battles!" etc. etc. and they're proven wrong every time. Many former gun-control states have passed "Shall Issue" laws compelling the state governments to implement a permit system for concealed carry. One of the more notable ones was Florida in 1987.
"In Florida, for example, a murder rate that was 36% above the national average when carry reform went into effect in 1987, fell by 1991 to 4% below the national average."
http://www.rkba.org/research/cramer/shall-issue.h
No blood in the streets. No western movie shootouts. Just more evidence of the well documented deterrent effect of law abiding citizens empowered to defend themselves.
People who murder people who have done them wrong do not generally get any long term relief from the act.
Maybe not, but: (a) at least they remove some rubbish from the gene pool, and (b) at least they have prevented the perpetrator from (in most cases) inevitably carrying out more attacks, thereby saving some other innocent people from having to become victims. I'd rather not have the person who took your eye still walking the same streets as I (and my family) do. It's perhaps not so much about "relief" or "revenge" as it is about *safety* from barbarians; forgiving the perpetrator isn't going to make them stop their behaviour (which is virtually never justified to begin with). I guess courts + jail is the better, 'civilized' option when it is possible, but in many cases this system unfortunately isn't effective enough. Drawn-out 'civilized' court cases also inflict further trauma on the victims of criminals.