A Phoenix, AZ resident, Christopher Cantrell, has received a sentence of 21 years in prison for crimes that include identity theft. He was arrested in July of this year after trying to buy some computers at Best Buy using a forged driver’s license an forged credit card. Employees of the store saw that the ID used to make the purchase, did not match that of the person making the transaction and alerted the authorities immediately. The defendant did try to run away from police, but was apprehended in the parking lot of the store. At the time of his arrest, he was found carrying three forged identification cards.

A Phoenix county attorney said: “Identity theft and fraud are serious crimes that cost individual victims and businesses thousands and thousands of dollars. “As a result, we will continue to seek serious punishment for those who commit these crimes.”

Cantrell plead guilty on September 30, 2008 to charges that include “taking identity of another.”

When id theft criminals are easily able to gain access to an individuals personal information, it makes their crime much easier to commit. Join the large number of LifeLock members in helping to stop this type of crime from being committed. By having a protection service like LifeLock, you will not only be protecting yourself, but helping to stop the crime of identity theft.

It also helps to: shred any documents containing personal information, keep social security cards in a safe place (other than a wallet or purse), keep track of all credit card numbers in case they need to be reported stolen and to check your credit report regularly for any suspicious activity.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 31st, 2008 at 11:01 am and is filed under Articles Concerning Identity Theft. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.