Identity Thief Targets Family & Friends

For Erika Morales, anyone’s identity was good enough to steal, say Florida investigators.

Morales has been accused of stealing from strangers — plenty of them. But the 35-year-old from suburban West Palm Beach, Fla., also has been accused of using identity theft to defraud the father of her daughter, the manager of the daycare who takes of her daughter, and a woman who has known Morales for 10 years and thought she was her best friend, according to the Palm Beach Post.

Those were among the alleged victims in new identity theft charges that Palm Beach County authorities recently brought against Morales. Authorities now have charged Morales on 41 counts of identity theft. Morales was first charged, in early March, with stealing the identities of patients of the diabetes medical supply firm where she worked as a telephone solicitor.

When detectives searched Morales’ home they found two computer hard drives, a laptop computer, and two handwritten journals with the names, birth dates and Social Security numbers for dozens of people, including at least 40 clients of the diabetes medical supply firm.

Morales is no stranger to fraud charges.

Before the recent charges, she had been arrested six times, mostly on fraud charges, and served two years in prison.

Court documents show she stole two $500 gift cards while working at a Wal-Mart, stole more than $4,000 by logging phony trips and running customers’ credit cards more than once while working for a cab company, and stole $2,500 while working at a towing company. Documents also show $78,667 in liens and restitution demands against Morales since 2002.

Morales remains in the Palm Beach County jail, pending her trial or her posting bail.