Grand Jury Calls for Countywide Task Force to Battle Identity Theft

The Orange County district attorney’s office needs more investigators and prosecutors to handle identity theft cases, police agencies need more training, and a countywide regional task force ought to be set up to focus on the problem, the county grand jury recommended this week.

“It’s a problem in most areas, and it’s on the rise in Orange County,” foreman Tom Staple said following Monday’s release of the jury’s report.

“There have been enough newspaper accounts about it so that we felt it was important to see how it affects Orange County,” Staple said.

The answer, according to the report, which took eight months to prepare: very seriously.

In fiscal 2002-03, according to the report, 291 identity-theft cases were referred to the district attorney’s office for prosecution. The number roughly mirrored the 79% increase in such crimes nationwide since last fiscal year.

About 43% of them, the report said, were filed under a state penal code section providing punishment of up to a year in county jail or three years in state prison.

“As personal identity information is used more frequently for Internet and other financial transactions,” the report points out, “that information has become accessible to those who have learned how to use it for their own gain. Thieves also have learned that they can dig through residential trashcans and often retrieve valuable personal information. A stolen or lost wallet or purse can yield information useful to identity thieves....”

And yet, the report argues, despite an “admirable job” done by some police agencies in providing information to the public on preventive and corrective measures, investigators and prosecutors in the county district attorney’s office “are not always experienced in very complex identity-theft crimes.”

Police personnel are “not well trained in their part in investigation and preparation” and, “unfortunately, funding for such training has been cut due to budgetary constraints,” the report says.

Under state law, the Orange County Board of Supervisors, district attorney’s office and several law enforcement agencies mentioned in the report have 90 days in which to respond to the jury’s findings.