The spy who loved me – not
July 1, 2010 – 12:57 pmIn one of the most bizarre tales of identity theft in history, Ontario resident David Heathfield said June 29 that the identity of his brother, Donald, was stolen by alleged Russian spy, Donald Heathfield, who has used the false identity for years.
David’s brother died when he was six week old in 1963.
“When we first heard about it, we thought it was a joke,” David said. “Then it was a shock to us. How can somebody get away using our family name as an alias for so long and not be detected?”
David says his mother, Shirley, is distraught over the discovery of the theft of the identity of the child she lost to crib death.
David said he doesn’t know how his brother turned up in U.S. Court files, but he thinks the Russians may have singled out his brother’s 47-year-old death notice in a Montreal newspaper.
David said he has reviewed the FBI affidavit that includes details of a Canadian birth certificate, found by authorities, that had been stashed in a Cambridge, Massachusetts safe deposit box by the alleged spy. The name on the document was Donald Howard Graham Heathfield.
Shirley gave birth to her son, Donald, on Feb. 4, 1963. The document the FBI has in custody states the alleged spy’s birth date as Feb. 4, 1962.
David told authorities that all of the other information listed on the document matched details as relayed by his mother, including listing Shirley Graham Heathfield as the mother, and it noted that Donald Heathfield was born in Montreal, which is where the real Donald was born and died.
Donald Heathfield, along with 10 other suspects, has been charged with following orders by Russian intelligence to become “Americanized” enough to infiltrate policy-making circles and feed information back to Moscow. Two other alleged spies taken into custody, Patricia Mills and Christopher Metsos, also claim to be Canadian.
Heathfield worked for a management consulting firm and lived in Cambridge, home to Harvard and MIT. Prosecutors say Heathfield met in 2004 with an employee of the U.S. government to discuss nuclear weapons research.
David wants the American government to move quickly to clear his family’s name.
“We don’t need to be held up at the border just because our last name is Heathfield, and they think we’re spies. He has no connection to the Heathfield clan,” David said. “With the Cold War over, I thought this spy thing was over and done with. But I guess it’s still going on. For somebody to be using my brother’s name for 30 years-plus, it’s kind of scary.”
Tags: Donald Heathfield, identity theft, Russian spies arrested
