LifeLock Blog

Michael Christopher Mills, a registered sex offender and would-be stunt car driver, pleaded guilty yesterday to charges of mail theft, aggravated identity theft and being a felon in possession of handgun.

Mills, 38, will return to the U.S. District Court in Norfolk, Virginia for sentencing February 20, 2009. If convicted, he could be sentenced to as much as 17 years in prison and $750,000 in fines.

Chesapeake police arrested Mills September 9 after a high-speed chase and his unsuccessful James Bond-like attempt to jump the open Gilmerton Bridge. The failed stunt landed him in the Elizabeth River, where a private boater then rescued him.

When police searched another car Mills had driven, they discovered at least 75 pieces of stolen mail, fake IDs printed with Mills’ photo and the identity theft victims’ personal information, two boxes of stolen checks from another person’s bank account and a .38-caliber Smith and Wesson, according to federal court documents.

Most of the mail was reported as having been stolen from local residents’ mailboxes, but Mills is also known to have burglarized at least one home.

According to Virginia’s online sex offender registry, Mills was convicted in 1993 of carnal knowledge of a child between the ages of 13 and 15.

Could it happen that after committing so much identity theft and deception, the perpetrator completely loses track of who he is?

Rodney Roussell was arrested this week in Baton Rouge, LA after the US Secret Service and the East Baton Rouge Parish sheriff’s deputies spent months tracking him down.

When Rousell was arrested, investigators say they found an ID bearing his picture and someone else’s name; the same name was also found on six different credit cards.

Rousell’s cell phone was in one name; his apartment was in another. He uses yet another name as an entertainer, and his car was purchased using the Social Security number of an elderly woman from Texas. Besides all that, Rousell is a cross dresser, but was dressed as a man when he was arrested at a nightclub.

Some of Rousell’s stolen identities help him receive bank loans, and others were used to rack up roughly $90,000 in counterfeit check charges.

Rousell is also wanted on fraud and identity theft charges in Texas.

Identity thieves seldom limit themselves to just one victim, or even a single type of criminal behavior. Likewise, consumers need more than one plan of defense to protect themselves from identity theft.