ID Thief Tries To Get Witnesses Whacked

adeelarshad82 writes "Pavel Valkovich of Sherman Oaks, CA has pleaded guilty to solicitation of murder, admitting that he attempted to hire hit-men to kill witnesses working with Federal authorities in their investigation of Valkovich's ID theft activities and subsequent crimes. According to the Justice Department: '...Valkovich and others had stolen personal identifying information and used that information to transfer funds from victims' bank accounts to PayPal accounts.'"

Comments

Put the onus on financial institutions

[dikdik]

Plain and simple, the only thing that's going to really make a dent in identity theft is to make identities harder to steal, and that means requiring all the banks and credit card companies to jump through more identity verification hoops before they give someone your money or a line of credit in your name.

Sure, requiring you to go to a licensed notary and have a credit card application notarized might not make it so easy to get credit, but it would also make it harder to get credit in your name.

The banks and credit card companies could do this, but it's more profitable to let people steal your identity and then just jack up fees and interest rates to cover the losses.

Re:What. The. Funk?

[camperslo]

But wonder what's going on inside the guy's head tho, he acts like he would be in an action movie:

Perhaps some action movies functioned as training and provided role models for this guy.
Watching too much bad stuff may make it seem more normal, making a line a bit easier to cross.

i was called to jury duty once

[circletimessquare]

and the case was a triple murder, drug related, in upper manhattan. this was being tried at the downtown manhattan courthouse

i was winnowed down to the final 20, almost an alternate juror. what surprised me was all of this personal identifying information was being disclosed, about me and a whole bunch of other people, while the defendant, ostensibly a triple murdering drug dealer, with obvious possible ties to organized crime, was sitting there hearing all of this personally identifying info about people who were going to judge him, and he was even taking notes. they were even asking me and others questions about our siblings and what they did (maybe they were asking that because the defendant killed a sibling? i never heard any further details of the crime after i was weaned out and put back in the snooze room)

so why is it, in the us court system at least, that the identity of witnesses and jurors is given so much free play with sleaze bag defendants who usually have no problem ordering hits for all sorts of reasons, not least of which the desire to avoid jail time. surely there can be more anonymity, no? i don't understand the status quo

ps:
notice to anyone who wants to get off jury duty:
when they ask you if you would consider other people's opinion when making up your mind, or if you would make up your mind on your own, answer (in my case honestly), that you wouldn't care what other people on the jury thought, that you would make up your mind on your own... booted

Re:i was called to jury duty once

[Sarten-X]

It's good to see others who actually accept responsibility for the world we live in.

I actually rescheduled my jury duty for when I had a break in my grad school courses, even though I could have been excused entirely. There's a reason it's called "jury duty", and not "jury we'd-really-like-it-if-you-came-and-helped-please".

Re:i was called to jury duty once

[Anonymous Coward]

I have the best one, I bet.

I was called to jury duty here at a time when my own case was going to be called. I'd have been in my own jury!

The charge was bogus, long story, but it was for a felony....but I'm a respected citizen, a voter, and eligible. Here in the boonies, jury duty probably means a few days sitting on perhaps a half dozen cases (all the court drums up that need juries in a month -- this is far out boonies, not much happening).

That was one funny phone call! Since everyone knows everyone here, there wasn't even the bureaucracy excuse...."Hey, Sue, do ya really want me to sit in judgment of me? I can make this real simple for ya then."