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City Worker Pleads Guilty To Identify Theft
A San Diego city employee accused of stealing water customers' information from a computerized billing system pleaded guilty yesterday to two felony counts of identity theft.
Jacqueline Annette Lawrence, 48, will likely be sentenced to two years in prison at a Superior Court hearing scheduled for March 7. She was charged last week with 36 felonies and misdemeanors including mail theft, forgery and computer-related crimes.
Most of those charges were dropped in exchange for the guilty pleas.
Lawrence was arrested Jan. 12 after an investigation by the Postal Inspection Service and a multiagency computer crimes task force. She worked in the city's General Services Department for 16 years.
After Lawrence was arrested, city officials suspended her without pay. A spokesman from the mayor's office said Lawrence will be fired. Prosecutors said Lawrence stole personal information from several customers and used it to purchase items on a computer at work. She passed the stolen information to other identity thieves, prosecutors said.
Lawrence also used a small metal device to pop open more than a dozen mailboxes at a post office in Chula Vista. The losses total a few hundred dollars, according to authorities.
Deputy District Attorney Joan Stein said in an interview yesterday that authorities identified four victims linked to the city's billing system and about 20 victims whose information was stolen from the post office.
Stein said the case is still under investigation to determine how much restitution Lawrence will have to pay. Authorities are still awaiting the results of an examination on Lawrence's work computer.
Lawrence has no previous criminal record, Stein said.
Another woman, Leslie Rozigas, 29, was arrested last month on identity theft charges. Investigators discovered she had received e-mails from someone with the user name “Tinman” who provided other people's personal information and told her to use it.
That investigation eventually led to Lawrence, who is Rozigas' aunt, the prosecutor said. Lawrence is being held at the Vista jail in lieu of $200,000 bail.
A few days after her arrest, Mayor Jerry Sanders announced that security changes would be made as a result of this case.
Sanders said all Water Department employees are blocked from accessing customers' personal information, such as Social Security and driver's license numbers.
Sanders also said he has directed the city auditor, John Torell, to conduct a review of the city's use and protection of consumer data, and the Water Department is replacing the billing system with a more secure one. Fred Sainz, the mayor's spokesman, said the city will begin sending mailers to the Water Department's 250,000 customers Monday notifying them of the security breach.
By Dana Littlefield, Union-Tribune Staff Writer | Source: Union-Tribunewww.signonsandiego.com