Teach a man to call and he swindles for a day. Give a man a phone and he swindles for a lifetime.
A Multnomah County jail inmate accused of pretending to be a grandson who needed cash to bail out of jail has pleaded no contest to multiple counts of identity theft.
Prosecutors said 44-year-old Stephen Lee Brown’s crimes included impersonating the 20-year-old grandson of an 86-year-old Portland couple in March. The grandparents took a cab to the jail.
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Deputy District Attorney Chuck Mickley says 29 of Brown’s 66 convictions have been for crimes committed while he was in jail or prison. As Brown pointed out to the judge, the prison yard is full of phones.
Read more from the Associated Press.