LifeLock Blog

A six-count indictment has been filed with the U.S. District Court accusing a Seattle Municipal Court employee of selling credit card information to an identity theft ring. The four members of the identity theft ring have already been charged, who’s court case exposed the court workers involvement.

According to the prosecutors Diamond Wendell Alexander Jr. and Crystal Loren Lee would recruit people to steal credit card numbers for customers at their place of business. They would pay the accomplices for each number stolen. The card information was used to create fake credit cards.

The Seattle Municipal Court employee was one of those recruited people that passed the information on to the id theft ring. The employee would record card information from people paying tickets or other court transactions. Police discovered the relationship when they searched Lee’s car and found profiles of people that appeared had been printed at the the Court.

The woman has been fired from her position at the court house and is being brought up on charges. The court house employee wasn’t the only person recruited by the id theft ring. A Jack in the box employee has also admitted to using a skimmer, provided to him by the id theft ring, to steal information from customers paying with a credit card.

How do you like that, you go to the court house to pay your ticket and the court employee steals your card number. You then stop at Jack in the Box to grab something to eat and it gets stolen again. It goes to show that you can’t really trust anyone with your information. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use credit cards just that you need to be careful and have a system for detecting and preventing it from happening to you.

Frederick Eugene Wood’s story is a cautionary tale. Never use methamphetamine. Never share needles or engage in unprotected sex. Use caution when making purchases from Craigslist. And–in light of his sentencing this week on ID theft charges–beware of peer-to-peer file-sharing software.

Wood’s elaborate identity theft scam started with Craigslist ad for computers. When prospective buyers responded to his ad, Wood, 34, used LimeWire file-sharing software to access bank, credit card and tax return files on their computers.

To delay detection, Wood met with the buyers to deliver what were ostensibly the promised computers, but were actually computer boxes full of stuff like rocks or books to give them the appropriate heft.

When he was arrested, his computer contained personal and financial files belonging to more than 120 people; his wallet held eight driver’s licenses bearing Wood’s photo, but each having different names, addresses and birth dates. His victims hailed from New York, Massachusetts, Georgia, Florida, Ohio, Iowa, Louisiana, Oregon and California.

“One thing I wish more than anything else is that I could look the victims in the face and apologize to them to their faces,” Wood said at his sentencing hearing.

Addicted to methamphetamine and infected with HIV/AIDS, Woods told U.S. District Judge James Robart he was optimistic the compulsory drug treatment he’ll undergo in prison would restore him to a productive member of society.

Robart wasn’t very optimistic, citing Wood’s history of manipulation and his three failed drug rehab attempts, and sentenced him to 39 months.