November 2, 2007

The varsity (Harvard, Columbia, Cal State admissions) of ID thieves remains at large.
Posted by The Oregonian

Oh she's really really good. Esther Reed is somewhere out there, dating U.S. Military Academy cadets, studying at Harvard and Columbia. And huh, Cal State Fullerton? Even convinced folks she's a European chess champion. And really, she's a high school dropout from suburban Seattle. The Seattle Times revisited her tale after first publishing a story last January. Both are worth reading to the end.

Esther Reed, 29, disappeared from the area in 1999 after pleading guilty in King County to stealing her sister's checkbook. Since then, law-enforcement officials say, she has conned friends, employers, boyfriends and college-admissions officials into believing she was one of three different women whose identities she assumed in order to gain admission into Harvard, Columbia and California State University, Fullerton.

Reed is now wanted by federal authorities because she fraudulently received more than $100,000 in student loans, racked up credit-card bills and obtained a passport in someone else's name, according to federal charging papers. She was indicted last summer by a federal grand jury in South Carolina on charges of mail fraud, wire fraud, aggravated identity theft and Social Security fraud, according to the indictment that was unsealed this week.

Assistant U.S. Attorney W. Walter Wilkins said the U.S. Marshals Service and the Secret Service, which is assigned to investigate identity theft and Social Security fraud, are searching for the missing woman. He said that if Reed is found, tried and convicted she could face more than 20 years in prison.

"She could be anywhere," said Wilkins, who is based in Greenville, S.C. "Esther Reed has obviously become very creative and skilled in assuming somebody else's identification."