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Date: Thu, 09 Mar 2006 17:36:09 -0500
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From: "James M. Atkinson" <jm..._at_tscm.com>
Subject: Thief gets wallet, steals identity, toys with victim
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Thief gets wallet, steals identity, toys with victim
By Peter Shinkle
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Wednesday, Mar. 01 2006
It looked like a routine identity theft, at first.
About a month after losing his wallet at a shopping mall in November,
Steven B.
Weiss discovered that someone was using his name to obtain credit cards.
But when Weiss tried to put a stop to it, the crime turned on him personally.
Even as the FBI closed in, the apparent thief taunted and manipulated Weiss in
a series of unnerving telephone confrontations that showed he even knew the
name of Weiss' girlfriend.
"The guy has changed me forever," said Weiss, 40, who is the finance director
for a car dealership in Creve Coeur. "I had home security put in my house. I'm
sleeping with a gun next to my bed. I'm suspicious of everybody who calls."
The crime of identity theft is ballooning, according to the U.S. Department of
Justice. But confrontations, by phone or in person, appear to be rare.
Weiss' nightmare ended Jan. 18, when the FBI arrested 22-year-old Mario D.
Smith, a one-time track star at Parkway South High School who later had some
disconcerting scrapes with the law.
He has past convictions for unlawful use of a weapon and disturbing the peace,
and arrests for domestic assault, according to U.S. Magistrate Judge Mary Ann
Medler. She refused to set bail, deeming him a threat to public safety and a
risk to flee.
Smith had been the subject of numerous warrants for failing to appear
in court,
according to documents filed in the Weiss case. When police interviewed him in
August, they reported finding two .50-caliber guns in his car.
Furthermore, Smith had tried to board an airplane in 2004 in Los Angeles while
wearing body armor, which he had claimed was "for protection," the judge wrote.
Smith has pleaded not guilty to a federal indictment alleging he committed
aggravated identity theft and credit card fraud. If convicted, he will face up
to 27 years in prison and a fine of up to $750,000, although under sentencing
guidelines, the penalties would be much less.
Smith could not be reached for comment. A public defender representing him
declined to comment.
A lost wallet
The ordeal began Nov. 16 at Chesterfield Mall. Weiss reached into an outside
jacket pocket for his wallet and found it gone. He figured someone had picked
his pocket. Weiss notified his credit card companies, obtained replacement
cards and hoped that would be the end of the problem.
It wasn't.
An FBI affidavit and interview with Weiss provide an account of the strange
events that followed.
On Dec. 5 and 6, the credit companies mailed him even more cards. Weiss wasn't
sure why. Then, as he left home Dec. 6, he found a letter, delivered by a
parcel service, waiting inside the storm door of his house. He left it for
later. But when he returned that night, it was gone.
The next night, he got calls from the fraud departments of Capital One and
Chase, trying to confirm whether he used his cards to make ATM withdrawals. He
said no.
The companies told Weiss that someone had added a name to his accounts. Weiss
didn't know anything about the name. But whoever did it sure knew about Weiss.
To make the addition, the caller had given the correct maiden name of Weiss'
mother.
First contact
On Dec. 13, the Bank of America told Weiss that someone had applied for credit
in his name. Weiss called the local phone number the applicant gave the bank.
When a man answered, Weiss told him, "Whatever you are doing, you need to
stop." The conversation ended abruptly.
Ten minutes later, someone called Weiss' office from the same number. The
caller said "people" had found the wallet and mailed it to him in Florida. He
urged Weiss to meet him there so they could retaliate together against the
thieves.
Before hanging up, the man offered regards to Julie. That is the name
of Weiss'
girlfriend at the time, who lived with him in Eureka.
Weiss called the FBI. Special Agent Robert Tripp provided a phone
recorder. The
day after that, someone called Weiss and just laughed.
On Dec. 15, Weiss got the caller on tape, saying, "I don't think you
understand
how badly you --ed up. I mean really, people can get jobs, uh, commit crimes,
uh, do anything."
The caller promised help if Weiss would work two hours at a charity.
"I will send my representatives to watch you, to make sure
thantatives to watch you, to make sure that you go help,"
the man said. "We don't want you to donate money, we want you to donate your
time. Because you're a well-off man. I know you're well off. Your nice house
shows it."
Something else the man said on the phone baffled Weiss: "So I came there, we
met, shook your hand, looked in your eye, you smiled. . . . I just had to meet
you. Had to get a profile on you."
Weiss said he was unaware of any such meeting.
"It was one of the oddest feelings I have ever had, when the guy said, 'I've
looked you in the eye and shaken your hand,'" Weiss said. "You're dealing with
somebody you can't see. It's an incredibly frightening and violating type of
sensation."
'Make u a believer'
On Dec. 23, Weiss got a text message on his cell phone from the same local
number as before. The message said, "My wife has been ill. I am staying at an
hotel in eureka right now. i Will visit your job again at 5 pm 2day. Will you
be there?"
Agent Tripp watched the car dealership but saw nothing notable.
Later that day, Weiss got another text message that implied the man
knew police
were involved. "I just came to your job and smelled bacon. U are trying 2 set
me up. Because of this, i am angry. I stopped your id from being used and u do
this to me? I will now have to make u a believer."
Then came one more: "I need 2 do sum christmas shopping. do u have a credit
card I can use?"
The cat-and-mouse game was exasperating, Weiss said. When he put password
protection on his new American Express card, the undeterred thief apparently
closed the account and opened another in Weiss' name.
Weiss said he knows of about $2,000 worth of illicit purchases made with his
identity. Court documents do not cite a loss total. The FBI affidavit said the
thief tried, but failed, to buy about $6,000 worth of equipment to make
magnetic stripe IDs - along with 500 blank cards.
Eventually, the FBI got a court order for a wiretap on the caller's line. But
they were unable to determine the owner, because it was a pre-paid cell phone.
The FBI found it had been used in 177 calls to or from banks where Weiss had
credit cards, and other businesses. Also included were calls to a credit
reporting agency and to Intelius, a company that conducts computerized
background checks for a fee. There was a call to the DHL delivery service on
Dec. 7, the same day DHL shipped a new credit card to Weiss in the letter that
disappeared from his door.
The FBI also discovered that when someone set up a new Bank of America account
in Weiss' name Dec. 13, the applicant left behind a key piece of personal
information about himself: an e-mail address, stevenw..._at_hotmail.com.
With help from Microsoft Corp., the FBI tracked the account to a computer at
the home of Gus and Ruby Smith in the 4500 block of Fair Avenue in St. Louis.
The FBI said that the Smiths' phone also was used for calls about one of the
bogus Weiss credit cards.
Cell phone records showed that nearly half the mobile phone calls in the case
went over two towers within range of the Fair address.
Attention was focused on a resident there, the Smiths' grandson, Mario D.
Smith. In September, he had been arrested by St. Louis police for allegedly
using a credit card stolen from someone other than Weiss to buy
clothing, a car
stereo and other items.
A police report said Smith admitted obtaining that victim's identity
information from an acquaintance whose name had a familiar ring: It was a name
that had been added to one of Weiss' accounts.
On Jan. 12, the FBI learned that someone had ordered an emergency replacement
American Express credit card in Weiss' name to be delivered to a hotel in
Eureka. By the time agents got there that day, the person had left the hotel -
without the card.
A search - and a laugh
The next day, the FBI served a search warrant at the house on Fair Avenue and
recovered Weiss' checkbook, drivers license and six credit cards in his name.
Mario Smith denied ordering the cards.
Special Agent Tripp played one of the recorded calls and asked Smith why he
made it. According to Tripp's court affidavit, Smith said he was just
"teasing"
Weiss and, laughing, added, "Come on, didn't you think that was funny?"
The FBI reported that Smith also said he did not attempt to visit Weiss at the
car dealership on Dec. 23, and said he thought the text messages were also
funny.
But for Weiss - who could only guess at what was meant by the phrase "make u a
believer" - there was no humor. He said he did not know Smith.
Smith, who graduated from Parkway South in 2001, had entered Missouri Baptist
University last fall on a track scholarship. The university said recently that
he was no longer a student there.
Ruby Smith, his grandmother, said she doesn't know anything about an ID theft.
"We worked for our living all these years," she emphasized.
Mario Smith wrote a letter to Judge Medler on Feb. 7, urging her to reconsider
her order and release him pending trial. "I just ask that you see past some of
the immature things I may have done," he wrote.
The judge said no.
Steps to protect credit
Put passwords on credit card, bank and phone accounts.
Avoid passwords based on easily available information, such as a
mother's maiden name, a birth date or part of a phone number.
Secure personal information at home, especially if there is a
roommate, or if workers have access.
Do not give personal information by phone, mail or Internet unless
you initiated the contact or are positive of the other party. Remember that
some thieves and their Web sites and e-mails can be very convincing.
Shred discarded credit cards, charge receipts, credit applications,
insurance forms, physician statements, checks, bank statements and credit
offers.
Call 1-888-567-8688 if you want to opt out of credit solicitations.
Order a copy of your credit report once a year from at least one of
the three major nationwide consumer reporting companies and check the
accuracy.
Federal law entitles you to a free copy each year. Information is available
online at www.annualcreditreport.com or by phone, toll-free, at 877-322-8228.
Do not contact the consumer reporting companies individually for a free report.
Find additional information on the Web at www.consumer.gov/idtheft/
or at www.usdoj.gov/criminal/fraud/idtheft.html.
Source: Federal Trade Commission
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/emaf.nsf/Popup?ReadForm&db=stltoday%5Cnews%5Cstories.nsf&docid=1413E58D72F0351A86257125001932C2
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