A Manhattan judge has thrown out an identity theft case, ruling that prosecutors did not adequately demonstrate that the defendants stole the identity of an existing person. “To sustain an identity-theft charge in the absence of evidence that a real person’s identity was assumed would equate identity theft not with criminal impersonation, as the Legislature intended, but with false personation, as the Legislature did not. Whatever other fraud-related charges might validly be pressed for using a fictitious name to obtain a financial benefit or to cause financial loss, such conduct does not constitute identity theft,” New York City Criminal Court Robert Mandelbaum (See Profile), sitting in Manhattan, wrote on Dec. 7 in People v. Debranche, 01881.
In the underlying case, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office charged Alexis Debranche and Xavier McLaughlin with petit larceny and two counts of third-degree identity theft. Yet each defendant argued the accusatory instrument was facially insufficient. The information alleges the “defendants opened at least one cellular account…in the name of Avi Natanov” while a named complaining witness “knows that neither defendant[']s real name[] matches that of Avi Natanov.” Mandelbaum noted that “the sole allegations” were that the defendants opened accounts under an Avi Natanov, while neither defendant was named Natanov.
