WAVE 3 - Louisville, KYPolice suspect woman of stealing 25 identities

Police suspect woman of stealing 25 identities

By Janelle MacDonald - bio | email

LOUISVILLE, KY (WAVE) - She's just one woman, but local police think she's swiped a couple dozen identities all over Kentuckiana, all with the same first name.  What's more, the banks involved, may not even realize it yet.

Shelbyville police say it was an elaborate scheme by a woman who clearly knew what she was doing, someone who's done this kind of thing before.

"I committed a crime of check fraud and identity theft," said Kimberly Pennington Irvin from prison in 2007.

At the time WAVE 3 talked to Irvin three years ago, she said she had learned her lesson and wanted to keep other people from being a victim of crimes like hers.

She said then: "there are more deterrents set up now to stop people like me doing what I did to people like you."

Apparently not enough. Irvin was arrested days ago because police say she did it again.

"About 25 different stolen identities," said Shelbyville Police Detective Jesse Paulley.

Paulley says Irvin was running a pretty smart game: working at a Lexington medical facility to gain access to personal information of women with the first name "Kimberly" and women with birth dates close to her own.

Paulley said she then took out loans and got credit cards at banks and financial institutions all over.

"Bullitt county, Okolona, J-town, Louisville," Paulley said.  "We've got Lexington, Georgetown, Danville, Dry Ridge."

When the credit check came back to a "Kimberly" with a different last name, Paulley says Irvin had a ready explanation.

"It would say on there, well this social security number and date of birth comes back to Kimberly Smith," Paulley said.  "She would say, 'Well yeah, that was my maiden name.  I've married Gary Irvin.'"

Paulley says he's been able to link Irvin to crimes in eight jurisdictions

"It's in the thousands and thousands of dollars," he said.

He thinks he's just scratched the surface. He says area banks need to take a close look at their files, check for a loan to Kimberly Irvin and make sure it's legit.

"They have no clue, I don't think that they've made bad loans yet," Paulley said of the banks. "They're delinquent loans to them but they have no idea probably that they've given loans to someone that stole identities."

Right now, Irvin is only charged with one case of ID theft for a loan at a Shelby County financial institution.

However, Paulley says police in Lexington are investigating her work at that medical facility where they think she got access to the personal information, as are the other Kentuckiana jurisdictions where police suspect Irvin has been getting loans with those stolen identities.

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