Calling them the “poster children for identity theft,” U.S. Attorney Patrick L. Meehan said yesterday that he would seek five-year terms for a young Center City couple who used the good names and credit of others to finance a yearlong, $199,000 spending spree.
“No one was immune from the greed of Jocelyn S. Kirsch and Edward K. Anderton,” Meehand states. Their victims were strangers as well as coworkers, neighbors, and friends. The list also included another couple from whom the pair took information, first when they were guests and later when they burgled their hosts’ home.
In releasing criminal information - an indication that a plea bargain is in the works on federal charges of mail fraud, money laundering, and aggravated identity theft - authorities outlines an elaborate scheme involving at least 16 victims.
The criminal complaint said the couple’s action ranged from simply stealing purses at a Center City bar to establishing multiple accounts under different names and wearing disguises to withdraw money from some of those bank accounts.
In a move Meehan called “diabolical,” the two would buy time to make illegal credit card purchases by calling the victims of purse-snatchings and telling them that the bag had been taken accidentally or had been found by police and would be returned.
Besides purchasing goods, the two allegedly used their ill-gotten gains to take trips to Paris, Hawaii, Florida, Montreal, and the Caribbean between November 2006 and last December.
“But their year of living dangerously has caught up to them now,” Meehan stated.
Anderton, 25 years old, and Kirsch 22 years old, tried to scam an additional $112,000 in goods and cash but failed, officials said.
Earlier, in a brief court hearing at the Criminal Justice Center, state charges in the case were droped to clear the way for the federal prosecution of the two, who were dubbed “Bonnie and Clyde” by police after their arrests in December.
One sign that a plea bargain may be near is that the charges were contained not in an indictment but in a criminal information.
Both defendants now live on the West Coast but are expected back in the coming weeks for an as-yet-unscheduled court appearance.
Anderton, a University of Pennsylvania graduate, worked for Lubert Adler Partners, a real estate firm headquartered in Philadelphia, until he was last fired in September, Kirsch was suspended from Drexel University, where she was in her senior year, after her arrest.
The couple lived in a Center City apartment building owned by Anderton’s former employer and which was home to some of the alleged victims.
Based on the criminal information, here is a basic outline of elements of the alleged scams.
What was stolen: Credit cards, utility bills, financial statements, checks, identity information and keys.
How information was obtained: Purse snatching, burglarizing apartments and mailboxes with stolen keys, breaking into gym lockers, soliciting information over the telephone by false pretenses, picking up documents while visiting.
How it was used: Some credit cards were used immediately to make purchases. Other credit cards and information were used to obtain additional credit cards in the names of the victims, establish accounts with banks, eBay or PayPal, an electronic transaction network, and to open United Parcel Service mailboxes.
How the accounts were used: The additional credit cards were used for cash or the purchase of goods that were either kept or resold over eBay. The two also allegedly offered goods under the stolen names over eBay but never delivered. Money was transferred from account to cover tracks.
Meehan said the scheme collapsed under what he called “the greed of the hair extensions.”
In that case, Kirsch purchased $2,250 in hair extensions at a Center City salon using a credit card obtained in the name of a neighbor for a $500 deposit. She also paid the balance and a $250 tip with checks in the name of another person identified only as a former student. The checks bounced.
Police contacted the two victims, and soon the pieces fell together.
“If they had worked half as hard at their careers as they did in these multiple schemes, they would have been remarkably successful,” Meehan said of Kirsch and Anderton.
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