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CLOUDY Temp: 40 °F Wind: CLM at 0 mph Saturday, December 21, 2002 SECTIONS Home Page Local News Sports Business Obituaries Life Opinion - Politics AP News Weather Classified Archives Site Map EXTRA HomeLife Magazine W3 Magazine Jobs @ Mail Tribune Tempo A & E Oregon CarZone Wellness Connection Real Estate Newspaper in Education Prime Times Outdoor Journal Personals Movie Times TV Times E The People CLASSIFIEDS Find a Car Find a Home Find a Job Find Everything E SOUTHERN OREGON Automotive Communities Entertainment Publications Recreation Calendar ABOUT US FAQ What's New Advertise Home Delivery Classified Ad Contact Us Media Kit Email Story to a Friend November 22, 2002 Inmate got ID details off reports by police Jailed man faces identity theft charges after mailing information to a friend By ANITA BURKE Mail Tribune A Medford man faces eight charges of felony identity theft for allegedly tapping crime victims’ personal and financial information from police reports while he was serving time in jail. He then sent the information to a friend outside jail with a letter wishing her "happy hunting" and expressing his hopes for some new clothes and a few bucks, said Colin Fagan, the Jackson County sheriff’s detective who investigated the case. Fagan arrested Kristopher Ian Simpson, 29, at the Jackson County Jail Thursday on the identity theft charges. He remains jailed on $40,000 bail. Fagan said Simpson took victim information from police reports that were legally provided to fellow inmates. The accused have a legal right to review evidence against them. Simpson allegedly mailed names, birthdates, addresses, phone numbers, Social Security numbers, driver license numbers and bank account information gleaned from the reports to Tabitha Dawn McGee, 24, in August. McGee was arrested on unrelated robbery charges shortly after she got the information from Simpson, Fagan said. Investigators don’t think the pair used the information to swindle anyone. "It’s disturbing to me as an investigator to learn that this information — provided as part of the discovery process — was available in the jail and was mailed back out to new suspects to target the same victims," Fagan said. At the time of Simpson’s arrest, he was in jail after pleading guilty to an unrelated charge of unauthorized use of a vehicle, Fagan said. Jackson County Circuit Court records show Simpson has a string of felony convictions stretching back to 1991. Fagan said Simpson has spent so much time in jail that he lists the jail address as his home. Simpson was in jail on probation violation charges in August when he asked to see police documents that fellow inmate Donald Dean Leiter, 28, had received, Fagan said. Leiter faced burglary charges at the time and later was convicted. He is now serving a sentence at Two Rivers Correction Center in Umatilla, Fagan said. When Leiter was arrested for the burglary charges, he had an elderly Medford woman’s driver’s license, Social Security card and other documents that had been reported stolen. Fagan said the detective handling that case attached copies of the items to the police report he sent to the district attorney. State law requires the district attorney to provide police reports to defense attorneys, who then share the information with the defendant, said Jackson County District Attorney Mark Huddleston. Defense attorneys are supposed to block out victims’ and witnesses’ names and other identifying information such as phone numbers and addresses, but the law doesn’t address other personal and financial information, he said. Huddleston said relatively few reports include personal information and problems with such information falling into the wrong hands are rare. Both Huddleston and Fagan attributed the information Simpson accumulated to simple slips likely caused by the volume of paperwork defense attorneys handle. No one at the Jackson County Public Defenders office was available to comment Thursday afternoon. The information lifted from Leiter’s file was just part of Simpson’s list, Fagan said. The detective claims Simpson compiled a lengthy, hand-written list of personal and financial information on eight people and supplemented it with copies of documents torn from police reports. He mailed his collected works to McGee on Aug. 28 with a letter that said "here are the things I said I would send," Fagan reported. The letter also identified Leiter’s elderly victim by name and called her "a gold mine." Deputies discovered the letter and list when they arrested McGee in August. She said she didn’t plan to do anything with the information, Fagan said. Authorities have to show intent to commit a crime, and just receiving information in the mail isn’t enough to charge her with any crime, he said . Simpson is scheduled to be arraigned this afternoon. Fagan expects the case to be presented to a grand jury Tuesday. Reach reporter Anita Burke at 776-4459 or by e-mail at [email protected] D.A. advocates change in law to shield identity Jackson County District Attorney Mark Huddleston advocates a change in state law that would protect personal and financial information in police reports. He helped push for restrictions that prohibit defendants from seeing the names and phone numbers of crime victims and witnesses. Now he wants to extend similar protections to victims’ other personal and financial information — such as Social Security numbers and bank account data. He proposes that defendants be unable to access such information unless they get a court order to release it. The Oregon District Attorneys Association drafted a version this week of the statutory changes it would like to see. The association will give its proposal to legislators during the next session in hopes of finding a lawmaker to sponsor the changes, Huddleston said. He said he became concerned about the release of such information several months ago when he learned Jackson County sheriff’s detectives were investigating a possible case of identity theft involving police reports. He talked with a handful of other district attorneys around the state, but didn’t find many other concerns. "It doesn’t appear to be common, but the concern is significant and we need to address it," he said. "Even if it’s a rare instance, the system needs to be fixed." Meanwhile, the Jackson County sheriff’s and district attorney’s offices plan to discuss how reports are handled and ways to keep information from being abused. 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