Legal aid ends up costing 20 identity theft victims

December 4, 2009 – 2:51 pm

Tashannyo Adena Medley, a receptionist for a Jacksonville Are Legal Aid — a firm that focuses on providing legal assistance to low income clients — was charged with identity theft this past week. Prosecutors believe that Medley was responsible for stealing at least twenty clients identity and using that information to take out payday loans in their name. The scam netted her around $11,000 and, most likely, some upcoming jail time.

Medley is also being charged for another scam, this one involving submitting fraudulent student loan applications. Between the two illegal activities Medley is believed to have stolen over $200,000. By obtaining victims social security numbers she was allegedly able to fill out both student and payday loan applications. It’s not clear if the social security numbers used for the student loan scam came from clients of the Jacksonville, Florida law firm at this time.

Once again we have an example of ID theft happening through no fault of the victim. It would have been much easier on the victims if they were members of LifeLock. LifeLock’s preemptive measures help to ensure you’re never reading your name in a victims list in the newspaper or online. No matter how safe you are with your identity, there are still people who can steal it at all manner of places — law offices, medical records, government records, your mailbox… there are just to many variables to be unprotected in this day and age.

Help secure your identity with LifeLock today.

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