Note: this is a follow-up to a case previously covered on this site. Nicole Lakesha Ward, 28, of Washington D.C., pled guilty today to conspiring to commit bank fraud relating to a card-skimming scheme that targeted customers of The Cheesecake Factory in Washington, D.C. Ward faces a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison when…
Category: Business Sector
A costly layover: laptop with over 32,000 SSN lost
Through its lawyers, Indianapolis-based First Advantage Tax Consulting Services (TCS) has notified the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office that on June 10, a laptop containing sensitive personal information was lost during an airport layover. The documents on the laptop included information provided by employers who were receiving TCS’s professional services in determining their eligibility for…
VA: Ex-owner of Smithfield farm store pleads guilty to $1.7M fraud
Tim McGlone reports: A Smithfield woman pleaded guilty today to three federal charges, admitting that she stole the identities of customers from her farm equipment store to obtain more than 80 loans worth $1.7 million. Linda T. Rowland, 60, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to wire fraud and aggravated identity theft charges. Read more…
Lax document disposal leaves privacy in shreds
Mary Mitchell reports: Imagine the anxiety of discovering that the information you divulged to one of the city’s leading bankruptcy firms was not kept confidential. Last month, hundreds of pieces of sensitive documents that were provided to the law firm of Robert J. Semrad & Associates, also known as DebtStoppers USA, ended up in a…
WA: Fast food customers’ identities stolen by worker, say police
Three people are charged in an alleged identity theft ring, skimming credit and debit card information from fast food customers at a Tukwila Wendy’s restaurant. Maria Elena DeHoyos-Ortiz, 33, Linzy Jerome Hopkins, 27, and Ricardo Ricky Ramacho, II, 28, are charged with multiple counts of conspiracy to commit identity theft. King County Sheriff’s Detectives say…
NY: Cable guy guilty of ID theft
A Time Warner Cable (“TWC”) technician, who illegally installed a spyware program on three of his employers’ computers to enable him to gain unauthorized access to TWC’s customer database and billing system, was convicted on all eight counts against him. The jury convicted Louis Puesan, 45, of multiple counts, including computer trespass, computer tampering in…