Texas-Sized Identity Theft Sentence

In Identity Theft 911’s survey of law-enforcement agencies around the country, a common complaint involved the relatively light sentences identity theft criminals receive from judges and juries.

“The chances of getting caught are slim to none,” a representative of the Phoenix anti-fraud unit wrote in response to the nationwide survey. “The chances of getting prosecuted are even more slim, and if one does get caught and prosecuted, the chances of going to prison won’t happen until after you’ve been caught, prosecuted and convicted three or more times.”

The fact that identity theft doesn’t usually involve an act of violence is one reason such crimes tend to be pursued less doggedly by DA’s offices. Many authorities also lack the resources, technical expertise and jurisdictional authority to make such investigations a priority.

That’s why it was so heartening to see the judicial beat-down served up in Wichita Falls, Texas, as a man convicted of stealing personal information from 10 people received a 35-year sentence from District Judge Bob Brotherton.

According to The Times Record News, the prosecution of 31-year-old David Lee Fairchild was the first such conviction in Wichita County, in northeastern Texas, under a 2007 state law that toughened penalties for fraud-related crimes.

Fairchild was arrested in October 2008 in the parking lot of a Kohl’s department store, after police and a store manager confronted him. Fairchild reportedly threw down two wallets and ran before he was caught. Investigators found Social Security cards, credit cards, a checkbook and a driver’s license belonging to other people.

“Before they enacted the current law, we would have been capped at two years,” said Maureen Shelton, first assistant criminal district attorney with the county. The cap would have applied no matter how many pieces of information the suspect had been caught with, she said.