And two of those mudflaps...

As most of you who know me well know, I’ve had a great deal of difficulty lately with the fact that some checks from a long-time closed checking account have gotten into the hands of some vagrants who have decided to go on a several-month shopping spree in my name. Last Thursday I received a letter from the Tarrant County DA (District Attorney) office stating that if I didn’t pay off the balance of 6 of those checks within 10 days a warrant would be put out for my arrest.

What follows is the events of Thursday through today in regard to what has happened thus far in this case.

What follows is a transcript of the letter itself. Note I typed this so the formatting is not there. I currently don’t have a working scanner otherwise I would scan a copy of the letter for you all to read. Here goes:

TIM CURRY
CRIMINAL DISTRICT ATTORNEY
817-884-1400
TARRANT COUNTY
CRIMINAL DISTRICT ATTORNEY
JUSTICE CENTER
401 W. BELKNAP
FORT WORTH, TX 76196-0201
MOLINE, NICHOLAS
C/W 0379282
DATE: 12/01/04
THE CRIMINAL DISTRICT ATTORNEY’S OFFICE HAS 6 OUTSTANDING DISHONORED CHECKS SIGNED BY THE PERSON NAMED ABOVE.
TOTAL UNPAID AMOUNT OF CHECKS
$270.29
TOTAL UNPAID STATE CHECK FEES:
$45.00
TOTAL AMOUNT TO BE PAID:
$315.29
THIS OFFICE IS OF THE OPINION THAT A CRIMINAL OFFENSE HAS BEEN COMMITTED IN THIS MATTER. IF YOU ARE THE PERSON NAMED ABOVE, PAYMENT OF THE AMOUNT STATED ABOVE IS REQUESTED WITHIN TEN(10) DAYS OF THE DATE OF THIS LETTER. IF PAYMENT HAS NOT BEEN MADE, THIS OFFICE WILL CONSIDER PROSECUTION OF THE OFFENSE AND SEEK A FINE AND COURT COSTS AS WELL AS OTHER ACTION AS MAY BE APPROPRIATE.
YOU SHOULD PURCHASE A MONEY ORDER FOR THE TOTAL AMOUNT TO BE PAID. MAKE THE MONEY ORDER PAYABLE TO “TIM CURRY, DISTRICT ATTORNEY”. BRING OR MAIL THE MONEY ORDER AND THIS LETTER TO ONE OF THE ADDRESSES ON THE ENCLOSED INSERT. HOURS FOR RECEIPT OF PAYMENT ARE FROM 8:00 AM TO 3:00 PM MONDAY THROUGH FRIDAY. PLEASE SEE ADDITIONAL MAILING INSTRUCTIONS ON THE INSERT.
OR SUBMIT A SWORN WRITTEN STATEMENT, PREFERABLY THROUGH THE ATTORNEY OF YOUR CHOICE, SHOWING WHY A CRIMINAL CHARGE SHOULD NOT BE FILED. IN SUCH AN EVENT, THIS OFFICE WILL INVESTIGATE FURTHER AND DETERMINE WHETHER OR NOT CRIMINAL CHARGES WILL BE FILED. THIS STATEMENT MUST BE SWORN BEFORE A NOTARY PUBLIC.
ONCE A CHARGE HAS BEEN FILED AND A WARRANT FOR YOUR ARREST IS ISSUED, PAYMENT OF RESTITUTION WILL NOT PREVENT YOUR ARREST AND PROSECUTION PURSUANT TO THE APPROPRIATE PROVISION OF THE PENAL CODE.
PERSONAL CHECKS WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED, AND THIS MATTER CANNOT BE DISPOSED OF BY TELEPHONE.
TIM CURRY
CRIMINAL DISTRICT ATTORNEY

TOTAL UNPAID AMOUNT OF CHECKS	$270.29
TOTAL UNPAID STATE CHECK FEES:	$45.00
TOTAL AMOUNT TO BE PAID:	$315.29

Friday I left the house with my father. We went first down to the Police Station. There I wanted to check on the police report I filed on this matter back in August (August 12^th to be precise, 2 days after my birthday). I got a copy of the police report summary (Report Number 040054507) and the records clerk said if I have any additional information I should bring it down so they can add it to the report, in hopes that the culprit can be found quickly.

Our next stop (after some lunch) was to go to my bank and see what I needed to do in order to get Forgery affidavits. Turns out to get an affidavit of forgery it has to be for a specific check number. Well, I didn’t even know how many checks had attempted to be cashed. The bank however was able to search through their online database and find copies of 24 of the checks. They printed out copies of all 24 checks and gave me 24 forgery affidavits, which they notarized.

Next, I went over to the district office to see if I could get copies of all 24 checks and all 24 forgery affidavits, I also needed to get a letter (that I had written to the DA) notarized in order to fulfill his requirements in that 3rd to last paragraph. The letter I wrote can be found below:

December 3, 2004
In regards to: Outstanding Dishonored Checks
Tim Curry
District Attorney’s Office
Criminal Justice Building
401 W. Belknap
Fort Worth, TX 76196-0201
Dear Sir:
I received a letter from your office concerning 6 outstanding dishonored checks in my name for a total of $270.29. These checks, and at least 18 more to date, have been written by parties other then me.
On August 12th, 2004 I filled out an Incident Report with the Arlington, Texas Police Department on this matter. The Incident Report Number is 040054507. Copies of all 24 checks have been submitted to the Arlington Police Department in connection with the above Incident Report.As I do not know which 6 of the 24 total checks are in your department, I am enclosing all 24 Affidavits of Forgery for all currently known written checks. I am also enclosing a copy of the Police Report, and 9 letters from collection agencies that have concluded that the checks in their possession are indeed fraudulent.
I do fully agree with the statement in your letter that “a criminal offense has been committed in this matter.” This offense however, was committed against me, not by me. I will do everything in my ability to aid the Police Department and your office in finding and prosecuting those parties who are responsible for this crime.
If you are in need of further information from me in this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me, either via mail, or by phone at 817-905-2239 any time.
Respectfully,
Nicholas Scott Moline
Enclosures (35)

Iris at the District Office, who happens to be a Notary Public, notarized the letter. I made my copies and I then went back to the police station and submitted copies of those 24 checks to be added to my record (keeping a copy of them for myself as well).

Finishing up Friday, I sent out a large manilla envelope containing my letter, the DA’s letter, 24 forgery affidavits, a copy of the police report, and 9 letters from collection agencies that I had already dealt with that happened to agree with me that this was a forgery case (that makes the 35 enclosures)

Saturday night I couldn’t sleep. I had to run sound for church in the morning and I knew I needed to sleep, but I just couldn’t sleep, no matter how hard I tried. Eventually, I got up and went over to the desk and started the process of entering in the details of the checks that I now had copies of into an Excel spreadsheet, hoping to get a running total of how much money I’ve been screwed over for as well as seeing if I could find any trends in the checks.

Two checks among the bunch really stood out in the crowd as very interesting to me. The first was check number 1098, dated 9-19-04 to Dominoes Pizza for $42.44. What made this check really stand out among the pile, besides the fact that that was a whole lot of pizza, was the fact that this was obviously a pizza delivery. I know this because Dominoes affixed the Driver Slip to the back of the check before they endorsed it.

Now almost all of the checks, except this one, had phone numbers written on the front of the check by the person who wrote it, all of these numbers were different, and none of them were valid, but this one had a phone number and address printed on the driver slip.

3708 Carriage Hill Dr
Fort Worth, TX 76140-1336
(817) 561-0246

I looked up the phone number in AnyWho Reverse Lookup and couldn’t help but grin when I saw that it belonged to Kimberly Clason, who just happens to live at 3708 Carriage Hill Drive. I looked up the address in Mapquest and this address is just 3 miles from the office where I often do consulting jobs. An office that has a large dumpster out back that I use when my car gets incredibly cluttered and the time comes to clean it out. What must have happened is this:

I returned to Texas from North Carolina, distraught at losing my job (see previous articles on the subject) and in just plain bad spirits. My car was, once again in a state of disarray, with random papers and things in the back. I stopped one day at the dumpster after doing a consulting job and attempted to clean it out a little.
I saw some checks that were now from an account that had been closed since before I moved to North Carolina in the first place and, without thinking clearly (in fact with so little thinking that I don't even remember doing it), I threw out the remaining checks in the dumpster.
Who should happen upon these checks? But Kimberly Clason, or one of her family members or friends. They said "woohoo, lookie here, some checks, let's go on a shopping spree" and that's just what they did.

So I figured my case should be closed and we should have no problem catching the jerks responsible for attempting to ruin my life, but then another check appears to me, also very interesting.

Check number 1130, dated 8-22-04 (yes, a much later check number dated almost a month earlier, but that’s not the interesting thing), to Brookshires for $80.53. This check was obviously to be cashed, rather then just buying groceries because the store made him stick his thumbprint on the back and then stamped around the thumbprint a stamp saying “AUTHENTIPRINT”. So I have one check with a verifiable name, address, and phone number attached, and another one with a fingerprint.

On Monday I called the police station and asked if it would be possible to talk to the detective in charge of my case (they had told me at the records office that a detective is assigned to every case) and was shortly told that no detective has been assigned (remember, I filed this report back in August) because they don’t assign detectives to these types of cases until a merchant complains.

A Merchant has obviously complained because I got the above letter from the District Attorney, but still, no detective has been assigned to my case, and nobody will talk to me, so even though I have loads of evidence that could help find the people actually responsible for this crime, nobody will talk to me, I can’t show it to anyone, and I still face the possibility that I may be going to jail.

And people wonder why Identity Theft is the fastest-growing crime in America, cause the justice system goes after the victims, not the criminals, and when the victim finds evidence against the criminals, the justice system doesn’t want to hear it.

Anyway here we are, this is how things have been going in my ongoing case against me in identity theft.