Identity Theft: Say Educated- Type 5

Character/Criminal Identity Theft
This type of identity theft is just as difficult as medical identity theft in terms of resolution. Like medical identity theft, criminal identify theft has a way of coming back to haunt you, even after you have taken care of the problem. if an individual with a shady background obtains your identification with the intent of using it as an alias or cover, it may be to commit some type of crime. if you are unaware of this happening to you, it could cause issues with your job, home, anything you own, and your driving record. When dealing with criminal identity theft, expect a lot of skepticism. Police are told "it wasn't me" almost every day, and it is their job to confirm the information they have and conduct an investigation for new information. Hopefully you get a decent lawyer and the evidence points in your favor. 

Criminal identify theft is most common amongst  siblings. For example, the shooter responsible for the tragedy in Connecticut in December of last year was carrying his brother's identification at the time. According to USA Today, "The suspect in the Connecticut shooting, Adam Lanza, 20, was apparently carrying his older brother Ryan's identification, setting off a media mixup that propelled Ryan's Facebook photo onto the Internet tens of thousands of times as the purported shooter and prompting him to post a plaintive plea: 'It wasn't me'."

Granted, this extreme incident is rare, and it is more likely that individuals use their siblings IDs to commit smaller crimes, or assume their sibling's ID in order to avoid problems from their own past. This is most likely to occur when siblings are young, between teen years to thirties. This will mostly likely take shape in one of two ways.

 For example, lets say Eric has been caught doing something wrong and is brought to a police station to be booked and fingerprinted. Despite modern technology, it takes some time to process the fingerprints  so when Eric is released on bail he uses his brothers ID in the meantime. 

The other way that this could go is worse; for example, now lets say Eric has never been fingerprinted before, but he goes and does it while using his brother, Shane's ID and information.  Now Eric turns around and commits some type of crime using Shane's ID. A warrant is now issued for Shane's arrest, who is probably unaware that anything is wrong, and when he is booked his own fingerprints will be taken. Unfortunately, he has to sit in jail until the situation is resolved and the fingerprints do not come back as a match. 

The worst case with this type of occurrence involves petty theft. Let's say Amanda is caught stealing while using her sister, Michelle's, ID and the overall amount of whatever she stole is less than $400.00. There isn't enough room in jails to hold people caught for such small crimes so instead of being arrested and booked, Amanda is issued a citation, under Michelle's name, that sys she has to appear for court, get her picture taken, etc. Now, Amanda doesn't appear for court and a warrant is issued for Michelle's arrest. If Michelle gets pulled over on the road, or for whatever reason the police run her ID, they would see the warrant and a fine for contempt of court and arrest her on the spot. Let's say worst case scenario, it's Friday, so Michelle has to sit in jail through the weekend, but Monday is a holiday so now she cant even begin to do anything until Tuesday. Now if Amanda skipped town or keeps her mouth shut about being the actual thief, then Michelle has to hope that she has someone who can verify her whereabouts, or that the initial officers who wrote the citation don't recognize her as being the thief since the only information the authorities have to go on is Michelle's identification, date of birth, and social security number as Amanda was not booked and fingerprinted after being caught. In the worst cases of this happening, the sibling whose identity was used has a very difficult task of proving their innocence; if this takes a while then they're sitting in jail the whole time, have probably lost their job, and everyone is thinking they're a criminal while their guilty sibling is sitting pretty. 

As unfair and ridiculous as it may seem, criminal identity theft is quite common and, in many cases, goes way beyond standard sibling rivalries. 

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