Jennifer Hurley, a petite 33-year-old blonde, has contributed to what federal authorities say is the nation's fastest-growing crime. She has admitted she stole the identities of three similar-looking women in three states.

Hurley

        She used a Texas woman's identification to get an Ohio driver's license. Then she bought three cars, took out loans, opened bank accounts and got credit cards — all under her victims' names, authorities said. Using an assumed name, she even landed a job as a hospital patient registrar.

        And, police say, Ms. Hurley — who attended 10th grade at Talawanda High School in Oxford — also used a computer to generate bogus checks to herself.

        The Butler County case of Ms. Hurley, who pleaded guilty to nine charges that could land her in prison for 18 years, is an example of a growing crime problem in a computer-dependent world.

        The Privacy Rights Clearinghouse in San Diego estimates 500,000 to 700,000 Americans were victimized by identity theft last year.

        The Federal Trade Commission considers identity theft the fastest-growing crime in America right now. The crime category — which can include fraud, theft and the writing of bad checks — is rising by as much as 40 percent annually.

PREVENTION

• Obtain your reports from national credit bureaus at least yearly; check for inaccuracies and fraudulent use.     • Shred credit card statements, bills, insurance papers or bank statements before discarding them.     • Be careful when you use a credit card on the Internet or before providing personal information (Social Security number, birth date, etc.).     • Never give out personal or financial information to telephone solicitors or anyone who calls to “confirm” such information.

        And it deeply damages innocent people.

        “This girl has no idea what hell she's caused,” said one of Ms. Hurley's victims, Tiana Jennings of Ridgeland, Miss.

        Ms. Jennings, 25, reported having her identification stolen while vacationing in Cancun, Mexico, in June 2000.

        Ms. Jennings thought little of it until six months later. A Forest Park Best Buy store called and reported that a woman was trying to get credit in Ms. Jennings' name. The store manager advised Ms. Jennings to pull her credit report. She did — and found 30 to 40 accounts someone else had opened in her name. The debts, she says, totaled about $100,000.

        “I was sick to my stomach,” she said. “I thought people would believe me, that this wasn't me. They didn't. They were saying, "Are you sure you didn't come to Ohio and charge $7,000 at Elder-Beerman?' and I said, "I don't even know what Elder-Beerman is.'”

        Ms. Jennings says her once-unblemished credit record was shot, and she has spent almost a year trying to straighten out the mess.

        “We're finding more and more victims are being economically raped, so to speak, by people they don't even know,” said Lee Oldendick, an assistant prosecutor on the Butler County prosecutor's newly formed White-Collar Crime/Consumer Fraud Unit.

        Mr. Oldendick's colleague, Assistant Prosecutor Dan Ferguson, said it's becoming more important for authorities to pursue these time-consuming, intricate cases.

        “Identity theft is used to cover all kinds of other crimes,” he said.

        “It enables check forgery; it enables credit-card fraud; it enables their escape and evasion on violent crimes. And it can enable them to do the things that they need to do in order to hijack airplanes and blow up towers.”

        The case against Ms. Hurley began to unfold in September after Christian Hughes, 24, of Monroe, reported mysterious charges on her Elder-Beerman account — and that her driver's license was missing.

        Monroe Detective Mike Staples learned that Ms. Hughes last had her driver's license at a Middletown bar. So he contacted Middletown Detective J.B. Chase.

        As the detectives worked together, they kept finding links to Ms. Hurley — whose name appeared to be Rachel Rae Holmes.

        Police later learned that the real Ms. Holmes, 28, was a certified public accountant in Houston, Texas — and her ID cards were lost or stolen in Cancun around the same time as Ms. Jennings'.

        Both women's IDs were seized Sept. 26 from a Milford Township residence where Ms. Hurley lived. Investigators also found Ms. Hughes' driver's license, 11 different Social Security cards and a variety of bank and credit cards.

        Detective Chase spent about 160 hours on the case; Detective Staples and Oxford Police Detective Ben Hool also invested long hours. They got further assistance from the Butler sheriff's office and Hamilton County's Regional Electronics Computer Intelligence Task Force. Even the U.S. Secret Service helped.

        “These people who commit identity theft are very elusive,” Mr. Ferguson said. “It's like trying to chase a ghost.”

        The trail led to Milford Township after an alleged accomplice cashed a stolen or forged check at an Oxford bank, Detective Chase said.

        Last month, Ms. Hurley pleaded guilty to three counts of identity theft, two counts of tampering with records, two counts of complicity to forgery and two counts of theft by deception. Sentencing is set for Jan. 10.

        “This whole thing is unbelievable, how much one person could do,” Detective Chase said. “I did this case and I'm still having a hard time believing it.”

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