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The Orange County District Attorneys Office is committed to fighting identity theft by organizing training for local law enforcement personnel and participating in regional efforts to identify and prosecute identity theft based rings.
Identity theft is a crime that has substantially increased in recent years. The Better Business Bureau estimates that identity theft causes $52.6 billion in economic damage each year with an average of 9.3 million victims. It is one of the fastest growing crimes that directly affect our economy.
Personal information such as name, date of birth and social security numbers can be stolen or copied and used to open accounts, establish credit and run up debts without the victim's knowledge. It is sometimes difficult to find a suspect because the person who obtains the personal information is often different from the person who uses the information.
Penal Code 530.5 prohibits using the identifying information of another person to obtain credit, goods, or their medical information. This crime is punishable by up to three years in state prison and a $10,000 fine. Victims of identity theft are entitled under Penal Code section 530.6 to have a law enforcement agency take a report when they suspect they are the victim of an identity theft. The law enforcement agency will refer the report to the jurisdiction in which the crime may have occurred.
Identity thefts with losses that exceed $100,000 are handled by vertical prosecution in the Economic Crimes Unit of the District Attorneys Office. Most of these cases involve multiple victims and often someone who harvests personal information from an employer or database.
Most victims of identity theft are victimized individually and on a smaller financial scale. These cases are reported to police agencies. If the cases can be proven, the cases are filed in one of the five branch courts where the crime occurred.
