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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."
Lucky for the identity thief they ended up in the police station and not the morgue. If you were on the jury and the victim had beaten the thief to death... would you convict? I'm not sure I would.
Proud neuron in the Slashdot hivemind since 2002.
It would take me 45 minutes to run up ONE of thoes big SF hills.
With a little bit of digging, I got the name, address and phone of two of the people who got to use my debit card three years ago. One bought a Nextel cell phone, the other paid their Progressive insurance bill. I called Progressive and escalated this, and asked them what they were going to do. The answer? "I guess next time she'll have to pay cash."
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
So... how long before Karen's sued by the thieving bitch for harrasment and stalking...?
Someone had used my credit card number to buy a cell phone. When I saw the charge on my CC statement, I called the cell phone company (can't remember which one it was anymore) and asked what address it went to. Even though they paid for it with my credit card, they said they weren't allowed to provide me with any information. I called my credit card company, got a new card, and told them what I knew. Since the money came out of their pocket and not mine, I assume they didn't quit that easily.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
On top of the credit cards and prada bags, that fiend even had the tenacity to start up a web consulting business in her name!
...Yes, I know, but after all she's been through I think she deserves a gratuitous plug.
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Would they convict you on successful (as opposed to attempted) suicide?
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Did you RTFA? She didn't get her comeuppance. She got more probation and is probably out there right now stealing your identity and buying ice cream on your dime while you sit there and write you're glad "she got her comeuppance."
CommentBot 0.7a running with args "-module irritate,disagree -target random"
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.
(playing off another poster's similar comments)
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
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
'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.
This woman was in a department store and was purchasing something. As she approached the counter, she handed the clerk her credit card. The clerk went to use the machine but it apparently wasn't working, so she had to use a phone to call in the card. A short time later, a security guard came over and grabbed the customer. The cashier had actually called in a code to have the guard come by. The clerk said that she realized the woman was committing identity theft.
The astonished customer couldn't believe it, and asked the cashier how on earth she knew. She said, "Because that's my name on the card, and that's my credit card that had been stolen."
-- Paul Robinson - My BlogThe lessons of history teach us - if they teach us anything - that nobody learns the lessons that history teaches us.
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.
Hey! YOU OVER THERE! The one with my identity!!! STOP!
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.
While real problems and challenges like privacy and identity theft go ignored, they waste their time on crap like "National milk drinking day" and raising funds so they can leave more problems unsolved.
We are in the midst of an identity fraud crime wave, made possible by more intrusive technology and fewer regulations that limit the sharing of that information. There is a limit to the solutions that the individual can do - it can only be accomplished on a national level. Unfortunately, there is no leadership of any sort at the national level in the US. The head of the fish has completely rotted away.
"First you get the Linux, then you get the power, THEN you get the women"
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
as an Aussie I just carry an oversized impractical knife to ward off criminals.
If your neighbours roof is flying past your window, you know it's cyclone season.
Bartender> That's not a knife ... THAT's a knife.
Marge> That's not a knife, that's a spoon.
Bartender> I see you've played knifey spooney before.
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
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
We as a society really have our priorities out of whack. DUI? Home confinement in your mansion (no, I'm not linking to the stories about you-know-who). One teenager has consensual sex with another teenager? Throw him in jail for 10 years.
Steal someones identity, multiple times, costing the victims thousands of dollars in cash and lost time? Probation. Hell, I got people in my city getting probation for serious gun crimes. WTF?
But thanks for playing.
Ross
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
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 identity theft victim pulls a gun and tells the thief to freeze. The thief screams for help and that the woman holding the gun is trying to kill her. The identity theft victim explains that the woman she has at gunpoint is a thief. The thief says the identity theft victim is crazy and has the wrong person. Another well meaning hero to be pulls their gun and points it at the obviously angry woman with a gun telling her to calm down. Person number three pulls their gun and picks a side or generally points it at the other two people with guns in the coffee shop and tells them all to calm down. Everyone with a gun is convinced they are doing the right thing.
Ask a working police officer, this is a good way to get people shot and or killed.
Seriously, look at how people drive cars, and you want to give them concealed weapons permits to have guns on them all the time?
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
"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.
We don't want to call them identity pirates because then we'd have thousands of stupid weenies arguing that identity wants to be free and since there's no "theft" there's no reason there should be jail terms.
That's why it's gonna be called identity theft.
It's a far cry from admitting your fallibility (refraining from ever thinking you are absolutely right) to denying objectivity (asserting that there is no absolute truth or absolute good to strive to understand or attain). The latter is relativism; the former is simply not absolutism. And those two -isms are not even on the same spectrum; relativism isn't just non-absolutism or vice versa. Relativism is a metaphysical doctrine (talking about what actually is, or in this case, is not) denying objectivity, i.e. denying that there is something which really is true independent of anyone's opinions; absolutism is an epistemological doctrine (talking about knowledge, understanding of belief) denying subjectivity, i.e. denying that one's access to that independent truth is incomplete and colored by one's perspective. Thus, one can be both objective and subjective, as scientists strive to be. The conflation of objectivity with absolutism is the error at the root of all the relativist bull going around these days, which itself is really just a conflation of "truth" with "belief". A purely descriptive relativism is obviously true: duh, people believe different things. But it doesn't follow from that that they're all equally right. Likewise, it doesn't follow from the denial of that *that* any of them are absolutely right.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
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!