Monday, June 21, 2004 | 11:26 a.m.
Nineteen-year-old Bryan Gonzales went to visit his sister at the Las Vegas Outlet Center and ended up in police custody trying to prove he wasn't a car thief called Ishmael.
Gonzales had fallen prey to a trend in identity theft that can cause victims to lose not only their money, but also their freedom.
Lt. Steve Franks, commander of Metro Police's financial crimes section, said police in the valley have seen a spike in the number of crooks claiming to be other people to avoid arrest and prosecution -- resulting in criminal records for innocent people.
"We saw this looming probably seven or eight years ago and tried to get additional personnel to get in front of this, or try to get even with it," he said. "But now it's exploded."
Criminals giving fake names when arrested is nothing new. But the boom in identity theft, the accessibility of personal data and the ease in which authentic-looking false documents can be created have made it easier for a criminal to assume a stranger's identity in order to skirt the law.
It has caused a paradigm shift within Metro's financial crime section, Franks said.
Fraud and forgery detectives used to focus solely on building cases against people who commit crimes. Now, more than ever, they have to work to ensure that law-abiding people don't go to jail.
Statistics are hard to come by, but Franks said that city judges are each reporting five to seven cases a week in which identity theft victims are appearing in court on warrants for crimes they didn't commit.
About 40 people each month file paperwork with Metro's records department to get crimes other people committed under their identity removed from their records. Almost all are legitimate claims, officials said.
Identity theft is the nation's fastest-growing crime, with an estimated 10 million people victimized last year, according to the Federal Trade Commission.
Nevada had the second highest rate of per-capita identity theft in the nation in 2003, with 113 victims per 100,000 residents.
Fifteen percent of victims reported their identities were used in nonfinancial ways; the most common nonfinancial misuse took place when the thief used the victim's name and identifying information when stopped by law enforcement or after caught committing a crime, according to the FTC.
If the crook is released and doesn't show up for his court date, an arrest warrant could be issued in the name of the person whose identity was stolen resulting in an innocent person being put behind bars.
That could have happened to Gonzales in early June if it weren't for an alert Metro officer whose gut told him something wasn't right.
Gonzales was a passenger in his cousin's Mitsubishi Mirage when Officer Dano Giersdorf pulled him over at Vegas Drive and Jones Boulevard for a license plate violation.
Giersdorf ran checks on both men to see if there were any outstanding warrants against them.
He got several hits on Gonzales: prior arrests plus four felony warrants issued by both Metro Police and North Las Vegas, most for vehicle theft.
"He started calling me Ishmael and looking for tattoos," Gonzales said, explaining that Ishmael was one of the aliases listed on the arrest warrant. "He said I was supposed to have a 'Rest In Peace' tattoo, but I don't."
Gonzales also didn't have a bullet scar on his abdomen like the wanted man did.
The height, weight, age, race, date of birth and Social Security number on the warrants all matched, but Gonzales told Giersdorf he had never been arrested.
Gonzales explained that he had lost his driver's license and Social Security card in mid-2002 and the first warrant for his arrest was issued after that, leading Giersdorf to believe someone might have found his license and assumed his identity.
It's not unusual for people to lie to police and tell officers they have the wrong person, but Gonzales "was actually a really decent kid," Giersdorf said. "He didn't try to cause an argument. He was respectful and it made him much more credible."
Gonzales said he was "upset and angry and scared," but he kept his cool because he knew he hadn't done anything wrong.
Giersdorf got a sample of his fingerprints, which didn't match those on file in connection with the warrant, and Gonzales was allowed to leave.
While he averted arrest, he might not be home free yet: He is in the process of obtaining his credit report, which may show that the car thief also wrecked his credit.
Giersdorf was perhaps more sensitive to Gonzales' story because he said he has been a victim of identity theft, too.
Last summer someone managed to withdraw several thousand dollars from his bank account within a few hours, he said.
Fraud detetcive Joseph Maviglia, who has been assigned to Gonzales case, said Giersdorf "did a very good job in realizing these warrants were caused by identity theft ... We take this very seriously."
Gonzales said the experience changed the way he feels about police.
"Instead of arresting me, they were really nice," he said.
But sometimes cops don't buy the "you have the wrong guy" claim. If the name and description on the warrant matches the suspect, the wrong person could end up in a jail cell or courtroom.
Franks recalled a young man who had never been out of Nevada but was jailed in Las Vegas for several days on a warrant accusing him of rape in Idaho.
"Hopefully there is a fingerprint, a photo or an alibi that we can absoultely verify," Franks said. "We really jump through the hoops on that because the last thing we want is the wrong person going to jail."
Jail officials confirm the identities of people being booked on warrants by comparing their fingerprints to those previously taken under that identity via an automated fingerprint identification system, Capt. Henry Hoogland, commander of central booking at the Clark County Detention Center, said.
In other instances, victims aren't arrested but are summoned to court to answer to charges committed by an identity thief.
If authorities have the wrong person, the victim can file paperwork with Metro to get the information removed from the system.
Fingerprints and a handwriting analysis are taken to a lab and they're checked against the samples on file, said Novi Lopez, who handles records challenges at Metro.
Once it's been confirmed that identity theft had occurred, a letter is mailed to the victim that they can show to police until the problem is cleared in the system, she said. That usually takes 90 days.
Metro was handling about 10 records challenges per month in February, Lopez said, but the workload has now burgeoned to about 40 per month and she has been assigned to the task full-time.
Robert Douglas, CEO of the Colorado-based American Privacy Consultants, said it can be difficult to get a name completely removed from the official record.
"It's like getting tangled up with the IRS," he said. "That's the living nightmare for these victims."
Hiring a criminal defense attorney may be the only recourse in particularly severe cases.
Just as citizens should check their credit report regularly for possible fraud, they should also get their criminal record pulled, officials said.
Metro runs criminal background checks for a $14 fee at the records bureau at 400 Stewart Ave. Citizens must appear in person.
In some cases, identity thefts are caught before any legal damage is done, but not before causing major problems for victims in other ways.
Kravetz handled a case last week in which a man was fired from his job as a driver because a criminal records check showed arrests for driving under the influence and possession of drug paraphernalia.
Someone had broken into the man's car six months ago and had stolen his paycheck, registration and insurance information, then got a counterfeit driver's license and assumed his identity, Kravetz said.
If the man whose license was stolen had been stopped by police, he would have been arrested, and his driver's license would have been revoked and his insurance would have been canceled.
"We want to rejoice because this was caught before he was put in jail," Kravetz said.
While identity theft has caused headaches and a lot of red tape for Gonzales, he's over the shock and almost finds humor in it now.
How does he feel about Ishmael?
"He better hope I don't find him," he said with a chuckle.
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