jmccann@heraldsun.com; 419-6601
DURHAM — While there’s been some closure for city workers victimized by identity theft, city Deputy Finance Director Keith Herrmann said the whole affair has put him on his toes.
“To this day, I remain vigilant by monitoring credit reports, and I am worried about the harm done to me and my credit history,” Herrmann said.
City employees one day at work in 2009 wound up swapping similar stories about weird things happening with their financial accounts, and before long they realized it was more than a coincidence.
They’d been victims of identity theft, nowadays one of the fastest-growing crimes, according to Durham County Assistant District Attorney Doretta Walker.
Alexis Brooke Faison recently pleaded guilty to multiple crimes, including 22 counts of identity theft that involved city workers’ IDs. Superior Court Judge Ronald Stephens sentenced Faison, 27, to between 27 and 33 months in the N.C. Department of Correction.
Co-defendant Floyd Allen McSwain III is expected to enter a plea in early July, Walker said. Two other people may be charged in the crimes against the city workers, she said.
The city workers’ personal information was obtained from a monthly personnel report printed at City Hall in March 2006. That report contained Social Security numbers and other personal information about city employees. But it’s unclear how that information got into the wrong hands, according to courtroom testimony.
City workers figured something was fishy when they noticed the last names of the victims of the identity thefts began with the same letter, H.
There was Herrmann, who in court talked about the 8,700-some both current and former city employees who were contacted after the breach was discovered. Those workers — folks like Billy Herring, who told the judge what happened to him — spent many hours putting holds and alerts on their financial accounts, Herrmann said.
There was an $8,235.88 cost to the city for stationery and postage used to contact employees, plus the money and staff time it cost for the investigation, Herrmann said. Faison and anybody else convicted for these crimes will have to pay back every penny of those costs, the judge said.
Faison previously served time as a result of being charged pertaining to identity theft. Defense lawyer Kerry Sutton in court talked about the need for her client somehow to attain stability so she won’t feel the need to engage in such schemes when she gets out of prison.
