10-31-15 Kansas:
WICHITA, Kansas — The decades-long nightmare that ruined Marcus Calvillo's life started when he was a teenager and was wrongly accused of writing bad checks. His driver's license was later revoked for a slew of unpaid traffic tickets he never received. Then he got fired from his job as a cable installer, being told only, "You know what you did."
Today, the 45-year-old Texas man can't keep a job, pay his bills or support his children. But a case unfolding in federal court in Kansas is offering him the first real hope of clearing his name, after federal prosecutors charged a convicted child sex offender with assuming Calvillo's entire identity.
"My whole life has been put on hold because of this person, and it has gotten worse and worse and worse," Calvillo said.
After years of fighting to straighten it out, Calvillo, who was born in Oregon, had about given up when he read an Associated Press story about a total identity theft case in 2013 involving Houston teacher Candida Gutierrez. He contacted the federal prosecutor in Kansas who was involved in that, thinking the official, Assistant U.S. Attorney Brent Anderson, might help him as well.
Anderson said he found Calvillo's case "especially horrible, frustrating, disheartening," because the impostor in Kansas was convicted of a child sex crime.
It illustrates the fallout of "total identity theft," in which con artists go beyond financial fraud. It typically involves people living illegally in the United States who initially use the identities to get jobs. Prosecutors say the workers often then use the identities of U.S. citizens for years — entangling employment records, criminal histories, credit, government benefit accounts and even health information.
The impact can be far more devastating. The thief who stole Gutierrez's identity didn't just open fraudulent credit and bank accounts. The woman used her persona to get a job, a driver's license, a mortgage and medical care for her children. She even listed Gutierrez's name as the mother on the birth certificates of her two U.S.-born children.
More than 330,000 identity theft complaints were lodged with the Federal Trade Commission last year. While it doesn't track total identity fraud, 17 percent of the complaints involved more than one type of identity theft.
"All indications are that this is something that is rampant, and once a person finds out that their number is being used by somebody else — as Mr. Calvillo will attest — it is very, very difficult to deal with it and get any peace, any real assurance that nobody is going to be using that number again," Anderson said.
When the man who assumed Calvillo's identity had his first run-in with law enforcement as a teenager, his fingerprints became linked to Calvillo's name in crime databases. So did his subsequent convictions for indecent liberties with a child, bribery, drug offenses and others.
Calvillo was in his 20s when he learned his identity had been hijacked by a sex offender. After being turned down for numerous jobs, Calvillo demanded that the clerk at a temporary employment service explain why he wouldn't be hired there either — prompting her to highlight the crimes on his background check and give him a copy.
"I almost broke down," he recalled. "Oh my God! This is why I couldn't get this job."
Complicating Calvillo's efforts over the years is a Kansas statute aimed at helping officials keep track of those convicted of crimes that has been routinely interpreted as requiring an inmate to refer to himself, and be referred to by the Department of Corrections, by the name under which he was convicted.
Calvillo, a father of six, said he has gotten a divorce and owes more than $40,000 in child support he cannot pay while working occasionally at odd jobs. He went to cosmetology school, but then couldn't get a license. He tangled with the Internal Revenue Service over wages paid to the impostor, who worked at a Kansas meatpacking plant. He lost his house.
Then, in September, federal prosecutors unsealed an indictment against the man accused of impersonating Calvillo. Fernando Neave-Ceniceros, 43, a Mexican national, was charged with aggravated identity theft, making a false statement to the government, misuse of a Social Security number, and false claim of U.S. citizenship.
Neave-Ceniceros, an inmate at the Ellsworth Correctional Facility, did not respond to a letter seeking comment. Court records do not show an attorney.
To set Calvillo's record straight, federal prosecutors plan to go back to the counties where the alleged impostor was convicted and seek to correct the defendant's name.
"I think we will be able to get that done through the U.S. attorney's office eventually with the help of the courts and state officials and local officials," Anderson said. "But it is still going to require a lot of time and effort." ..Source.. by ROXANA HEGEMAN
October 31, 2015
After years of woe from total identity theft by sex offender, man sees hope of reclaiming name
November 19, 2013
Sex offender takes action against deputy who wrongfully arrested him
Maybe CLEET is not the correct course of action. Sounds more like a complaint for Police Internal Affairs is needed. i.e., Who Controls Local Police?11-19-2013 Oklahoma:
A man from Hulbert convicted of rape 19 years ago spent nearly two decades on the sex offender registry.
This summer a state Supreme Court ruling got James Center Jr. off the list, but now he says he's being harassed by at least one investigator who is disregarding the law.
When Center was 19 he dated a girl four years younger. "We had just went out once or twice and wound up sleeping together and that was you know that was basically it," he said.
But that wasn't it. The 15-year-old girl's parents pressed charges for statutory rape and Center became a sex offender. He registered as one for 19 years.
"It has basically ruined my life," he said.
Since then a lot's changed. He has a girlfriend now, and a family. And this summer the Supreme Court ruling struck down the law that would make him register for life. Instead, he's responsible for just 10 years.
"He registered nine more years than the law required," said Center's attorney David Slane.
Center says Cherokee County Investigator James Brown, who keeps up with sex offenders in the county, constantly follows him or has other officers following him whenever he goes into town. And despite the ruling, on November 2, Brown arrested Center.
"He had moved and changed his address he hadn't notified us of the change of address so that's why he was arrested," said Undersheriff Jason Chennault.
Center says he showed Brown his official court order, proving he was off the registry since early October. He keeps it on him at all times.
"I had it in my back pocket, I pulled it out, handed it to Mr. Brown, he laughed at me, told me it was no good...and also told me he was my God and I would answer to him," Center said.
Chennault says his investigator can't just take a possible criminal's word at face value.
"He said that, but we hadn't gotten any notification about that, there was nothing in the database about that," Chennault said.
Center's attorney thinks Brown should lose his job over the wrongful arrest. He's filing an official complaint with CLEET.
"Officers have got to understand that if people have a court order like this they need to stop and they need to use those investigative tools that they've been trained with to see if this is valid," said Slane.
Meanwhile the county maintains it's people did their jobs. "So as far as you know everything happened the way it was supposed to happen?" asked reporter Rebecca Schleicher. "Correct," Chennault responded.
Center says he doesn't care whether or not Brown loses his job, he just wants the unwanted attention to stop.
"I feel I've been cheated...this has been going on for 19 years, I would like the chance to live my life." ..Source.. by Rebecca Schleicher, Primetime Reporter
July 22, 2011
Brian Dickerson: Nonviolent sex offenders ensnared in state's red tape
7-22-2011 Michigan:
When his name went on Michigan's Sex Offender Registry for having consensual sex at 17 with a fellow student at Bloomfield Hills' Andover High School, Justin Fawcett despaired that his life was over.
Who would ever hire him? Who would want to date him?
David and Gayle Fawcett had spoken to other parents with children on the registry and knew Justin's fears were not exaggerated. But David Fawcett implored his son not to give up hope.
"I told him people had begun to recognize that it made no sense to put people like him on a registry that was meant for sexual predators," David Fawcett recalled. "I told him that he needed to be patient. ... The law would be changed."
David Fawcett was right: The law was changed, and late last month, the Michigan State Police mailed Justin a letter informing him that, as of June 30, his name would be removed from the public registry.
The letter said he might even be eligible to get completely off the list.
There's just one problem: Justin Fawcett has been dead for more than seven years.
Justin Fawcett never shared his father's confidence that Michigan would change its sex offender registration law before the stigma of being publicly branded a sex criminal had ruined his prospects for a normal life. His parents found him dead of an overdose in his bedroom when he was 20.
Now, you'd think a state police department that prides itself on knowing every little thing about the movements of Michigan's 40,000 sex offenders -- where they live and work, what kind of car they drive, when and where they go on vacation, whether they've recently joined Facebook -- would notice when one of those people ceases to exist.
And you might think that the police agency would be especially attentive when the thing that triggers a registered sex offender's death is the shame and stigma associated with that status, particularly when the dead teenager's father testifies before the state Legislature and his son's well-publicized death becomes a rallying point for citizens, lawyers, judges and lawmakers seeking to change the registry law.
But if you thought either of those things, you've overestimated Michigan's capacity to keep track of its sex offenders -- an ever-expanding polyglot that includes everything from promiscuous teens like the late Justin Fawcett to public urinators to violent rapists.
Karen Johnson, the manager of the Sex Offender and Registry Enforcement Unit who signed the letter addressed to Fawcett, did not respond to my repeated requests for an explanation. But State Police spokeswoman Shanon Banner said a deceased offender isn't removed from the department's master registry unless the offender's family mails a death certificate to the registry enforcement unit -- a step she speculated had not taken place in Fawcett's case.
"There's no process by which a name is automatically removed from the registry when the offender dies," she said.
Nor are Justin Fawcett's parents the only victims of the state's sloppy record-keeping. The letter dispatched to their deceased son is just one particularly embarrassing miscue in an administrative meltdown that has left most of the state's registered sex offenders in a dangerous bureaucratic limbo for the last month -- publicly flagged as "non-compliant" while an overwhelmed State Police department sorts out their obligations under Michigan's newly amended registration law.
Lots of information required
Nearly everyone convicted of a sexual offense in Michigan is required to register their address, employment and other personal data with their local police department and verify it in person at least once a year. Much of that information is listed, along with the offender's photograph and details of his or her crimes, on a public Web site maintained by the State Police.
All those offenders are affected by statutory changes that state legislators adopted earlier this year to assure that Michigan remains eligible for millions of dollars in federal funding.
The changes in Michigan's law provide some offenders, including teenagers who landed on the registry for nonviolent offenses like Justin Fawcett's, an opportunity to petition the court for an early exit.
But they also require all registered offenders to provide police with additional information, including phone numbers and immigration documentation. In addition to offenders' addresses, the registry will soon list the addresses of their employers and the make and model of their cars.
Registered offenders who fail to report any change in their living arrangements, employment, vehicle ownership, or educational status within three business days are subject to arrest.
Red tape from updates
The letter Justin Fawcett received was one of tens of thousands mailed by the state to alert registered offenders that they needed to update their files in person no later than July 15.
But lawyers and offenders I talked with this week say that local police departments were unprepared for the resulting deluge, and that many offenders who complied with the new requirements in a timely way are still identified on the public sex offender registry as "non-compliant."
In a random search of more than 100 offenders in four metro Detroit ZIP codes Thursday, every single offender whose file I reviewed was identified as "NON-COMPLIANT" or "ABSCONDER."
"What's an employer supposed to think when he finds that the State Police have publicly identified one of his workers as a non-compliant sex offender?" asks Cheryl Carpenter, an Oakland County attorney who said she has taken calls from more than a dozen offenders concerned about inaccurate Web site listings.
"We did underestimate the volume of information we had to process," State Police spokeswoman Banner conceded. "We underestimated how well (offenders) were going to carry out their new duties."
Banner said the enforcement unit had designated every sex offender in the state "non-compliant" when the new law took effect July 1 and had intended to change their status as their information was updated. Late Thursday, after I noted that every offender whose file I examined was still listed as non-compliant, Banner told me that the enforcement unit had changed all their statuses to compliant -- a change my own inspection confirmed.
Carpenter said the State Police have been courteous and helpful in correcting errors she has brought to their attention. Barb Lambourne, co-founder of a support group called Citizens for Second Chances, echoed her assessment.
"The State Police have been very cooperative," she said. "I think this has just been an administrative nightmare for them."
Banner said the overhaul required by the new law has enabled the State Police to identify many errors in the registry, including the inclusion of deceased offenders.
"Obviously, the registry is only useful if the information listed there is accurate," she said. "If anything positive comes of this, it is that this process is cleaning up a number of problems." ..Source.. by BRIAN DICKERSON who is the Free Press' deputy editorial page editor. Contact him at 313-222-6584 or bdickerson@freepress.com.
