Victim of identity theft wasn’t jailed, police say

Published 9:00 pm Saturday, December 20, 2003

SPOKANE — Police last week offered another distressing example of the costs of identity theft, saying a local woman was wrongly jailed for three days when a shoplifter who used her ID failed to show up for court.

The woman cited by the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office has had her identity stolen three times — but she says she was never jailed.

"I couldn’t figure out why they said that," the woman told The Spokesman-Review newspaper, which reported on her plight Thursday. "I was kind of upset."

Sheriff’s spokesman Cpl. Dave Reagan said he got the information from a note that was passed from a prosecutor to a detective to him.

"I would never question a prosecutor if they said a person had been booked into jail," Reagan said. "It could be erroneous information, but I would assume coming from a prosecutor or a detective that it would be correct."

The Spokesman-Review asked Reagan to double-check Wednesday by asking jailers how they discovered they had the wrong person in jail.

At 6 p.m. Wednesday, Reagan left the newspaper a recorded message saying in part: "The detective involved in that case does not answer his page. And the jail does not know how her identity was established."

The shoplifter, arrested by a security guard at a local supermarket was carrying no identification. She gave the guard the innocent woman’s name, and he took her photograph.

When the suspect failed to appear for court, an arrest warrant was issued, naming the innocent woman whose identity she’d used.

When the innocent woman went to court recently with an attorney to clear up another matter, a court clerk told her about the warrant.

"I’ve never been in trouble for anything," the nurse’s assistant said. "If I didn’t have a lawyer, they would have taken me to jail."

Deputy Prosecutor Bob Sargent confirms that the woman has no criminal record. He met her after prosecuting a person accused of stealing her car and her ID last summer.

Sargent wasn’t sure Friday where the story about her wrongful jailing got started, but he admits passing the rumor to Reagan.

In addition to the car and purse theft, the woman’s name also was used by a young acquaintance to obtain a false driver’s license, she said. She filed a police report naming the girl, but no arrest was ever made.

In January, she learned someone in Alaska was using her name and Social Security number to pay phone and cable bills.

"I’ve never been to Alaska," she said.

Now it appears her identity may have been stolen again. She recently got a call from a credit-card company asking if she wants a lower interest rate — but she doesn’t own a credit card.

"Somewhere out there someone has a credit card in my name," she said. "There’s nothing I can do about it. I just have to wait until it shows up on my credit report.

"It’s just like, when is it going to stop?"

Copyright ©2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.