How To Recover from Criminal Fraud Violations

One of the most devastating outcomes of identity theft is when a thief is arrested for an unrelated crime and uses the identity fraud victim’s personal information when being booked. Suddenly the victim has a criminal record.

According to Privacyrights.org, if you discover wrongful criminal violations in your name, contact the police or sheriff’s department that arrested and booked the person using your identity, or the court agency that issued the warrant for the arrest. File an impersonation report and ask to have your identity confirmed. That means the police department will take your fingerprints, a photograph, and copies of any photo ID that you have, like a driver’s license and passport. Your fingerprints and photo will be compared with that of the imposter.

Once your innocence is confirmed, make sure you get a clearance letter or a certificate of release to carry with you in case you are wrongly arrested. The law enforcement agency should also recall any outstanding warrants associated with your identity and file with the district attorney’s office the record of the follow-up investigation that established your innocence.

Once your name has been recorded into a criminal database it is not likely it can be completely removed. But you can ask that the primary name on the record be changed from your name to the imposter’s name, if known, or to “John Doe” if it is not known. Your name should then be noted only as an alias.

Finally, to clear your name in the court records, contact the D.A.’s office in the county where the case was prosecuted.