APRI Highlights - Spring 2003

Sean Morgan

Program Manager and Senior Attorney, White Collar Crime Program

Identity theft is the fastest growing white-collar crime in the country. In 2002, more than 162,000 identity theft complaints were filed with the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) Consumer Sentinel, nearly double the number that were filed in 2001. On October 15-18, 2002, APRI’s White Collar Crime Program (WCCP) conducted the inaugural Identity Theft course for NDAA at the National Advocacy Center (NAC) in Columbia, S.C., to educate state and local prosecutors on strategies to combat this burgeoning white-collar crime. Topics included use of investigative task forces, types of current identity theft schemes, charging theories, and an overview of electronic evidence investigations. Many participants found the electronic evidence module to be extremely useful, since many identity theft schemes are perpetrated using the Internet or unlawful access to computer databases containing victims’ personal information.

Seniors are the nation’s fastest growing age group, and criminals are increasingly using computer technology to commit fraud. To gather information on the current state of fraud prosecution at the state and local level, particularly schemes that target the seniors, the WCCP hosted a National Symposium on Telecommunications Fraud and Financial Exploitation of the Elderly on November 14-15, 2002, in Alexandria, Virginia. State and local prosecutors from across the country met with U.S. Department of Justice program officials and APRI staff to identify the challenges prosecutors face in handling these types of cases and potential solutions. Challenges identified by the Symposium participants included a lack of knowledge about electronic evidence and elderly victims, and limited resources to properly prosecute these types of cases. Potential solutions discussed included training on electronic evidence for prosecutors and studying successful prosecution efforts on these types of cases. The WCCP will use the knowledge gathered at the Symposium to structure future training, technical assistance, and publication efforts.

The WCCP also is developing resources to help prosecutors combat physical and financial abuse of the elderly. The WCCP has conducted a state-by-state review of criminal elder abuse statutes and compiled these statutes into a table for easy reference. Additionally, in Spring 2003, the WCCP will release Special Topics publications examining three current issues in the prosecution of elder abuse: the admissibility of elder victims’ hearsay statements, criminal liability for elder neglect based upon a breach of a duty to care, and due process in criminal elder abuse statutes.

Watch our Web site for updates on APRI’s White Collar Crime Program and availability of the Special Topics reports.