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ID Thief Tries To Get Witnesses Whacked

Posted by kdawson on from the palpable-escalation dept.

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.'"

4 of 168 comments (clear)

  1. What. The. Funk? by Rogerborg · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Valkovich will face a statutory maximum of 50 years in prison: 20 years for the murder-for-hire and 30 years for the bank fraud.

    Two things amaze me:

    One, that you can get more jail time for moving 440,000 from one DB column to another than for trying to have someone killed.

    Two, that actual bankers that committed fraud to the tune of trillions were punished by (at most) being handsomely paid off and sentenced to go golfing for the rest of their lives.

    What a strange "justice" system we've created for ourselves.

    --
    If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
    1. Re:What. The. Funk? by Opportunist · · Score: 5, Insightful

      He who owns the system makes the rules. Where's the news?

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    2. Re:What. The. Funk? by instantkamera · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Logic fail.

      he just tried to save 10 years of prison time. Had his plot gone through, there would have been no witness for the fraud, and all they could stick with him would be the murder: 20 years, instead of 30!

      Had this plot "gone through" he would have actually been charged with something other than "solicitation of murder", the charge carrying a 20 year sentence. Let's assume the murder charge is worse.

      And this is the reason why it is so dangerous to have laws on the book that carry a penalty that is harsher than for murder...

      again, the 20 years ... not for ACTUAL MURDER. Not to mention, Im pretty sure this guy wasn't weighing his jail time options and "settling" for 20 years. I think he wanted to silence the witness(es) and not get caught doing it.

  2. Put the onus on financial institutions by dikdik · · Score: 5, Interesting
    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.