Looking for new ways to supplement your post-retirement income and boost your standard of living? Walter Healey, a retired New York state Office of Taxation and Finance, apparently had a good thing going—until he was arrested this week, that is.
It seems Healey helped himself to information from tax forms of thousands of New Yorkers and used it to take out nearly 100 credit cards and credit lines at a couple dozen different banks. Total value: more than $200,000.
So far, the NY Attorney General’s office has discovered accounts opened with Social Security numbers of at least 15 identity theft victims, including four dead people and a four-year-old boy. Among the dead people were his mother and sister (no harm, no foul?).
Of course, all these accusations are only allegations, but when Healey’s home was searched, officials found a boatload of damning evidence, including:
- Copies of over 700 New York State tax forms containing identifying information of New York taxpayers
- Numerous identity documents, including copies of over 300 birth certificates and over 1,000 Social Security cards in the names of various New York taxpayers and their children
- Hundreds of pages of credit card statements, credit card inquiry letters, credit applications and credit cards in the names of “Walter Healey” and numerous other individuals
- Approximately 2,000 Post-It notes with the Social Security Numbers of New York taxpayers handwritten on them - many of them accompanied by handwritten notes such as “good prospect,” “had money,” and “go with this one”