Name changes called part of ID theft plot
SEATTLE – Eleven people face federal charges of bank and Social Security fraud after prosecutors say they changed their names numerous times as part of a sophisticated identity theft scheme.
Most of the defendants made their initial appearances and pleaded not guilty Monday in U.S. District Court in Seattle.
Prosecutors dubbed their investigation “Operation Name Game” and found that banks lost more than $83,000 and merchants more than $158,000. They would not say how the defendants obtained the stolen Social Security numbers.
Matthew Lavelle, a special agent with the Social Security Administration’s Office of Inspector General, initially uncovered the problem in 2004 while investigating an identity-theft ring involving a Department of Licensing employee.
A target of that investigation, Coretta Caldwell, had 17 Washington state ID cards in different names, according to court documents.
Caldwell got several of the IDs after obtaining legal name changes in King County District Court and then opened 15 checking accounts, according to a plea agreement she accepted in 2005. Caldwell admitted to writing nearly $67,000 in bad checks. She was sentenced to two years in prison.
Four of the defendants charged Monday are relatives of Coretta Caldwell, said Vince Lombardi, the assistant U.S. attorney prosecuting the case.
Thousands of people in Washington state change their names every year. In King County alone, 2,938 name-change orders were issued in 2006, and 2,900 were issued in 2005.
Name-change petitioners pay a $108 fee and fill out a one-page form to ensure the applicant is a U.S. citizen and a county resident and is not a registered sex offender. The form asks for a brief reason for the change and states that a name change cannot be “detrimental to the interests of any other person.”
The petitioner then appears briefly before a district court judge. Because petitioners do not have to provide a Social Security number or a driver’s license number, it’s not easy to identify serial name-changers.
“You really have to dig deep in the system to see how the names are linked,” Lavelle said.
Teeshawndra Nelson changed her name four times in less than four months in the spring of 2005, according to charging papers, but at the time no one noticed.
When Ausha Pigott, another defendant, changed her name three times in 2005, she listed as a reason each time a desire to take her father’s name, according to court papers.