Posted on 10/17/2003 6:25:01 AM PDT by tdadams
A jobs program for state prison inmates has tightened restrictions on inmate labor following an investigation into identity and credit card theft that led to federal indictments Wednesday in Memphis.
Patricia Johnson, an inmate at the Tennessee Prison for Women and eight alleged co-conspirators, including University of Memphis basketball player Clyde Wade, were charged with using information obtained from prison data entry work to fraudulently obtain merchandise, cash, and gift cards from stores including Dillard’s, Sears and Goldsmith’s.
Tennessee Rehabilitative Initiative in Correction (TRICOR), which provided work for Johnson and other inmates, has also lost some state government business as a result of the probe. About 10 percent of work performed by inmates for TRICOR involves data entry for state government agencies.
The indictment says that more than 20 Tennessee residents were victimized by the alleged conspiracy, between November 2002 and April 2003.
The victims’ personal information was allegedly gathered by Johnson in the course of her work for TRICOR and relayed to outsiders including Wade.
Wade is accused of obtaining gift cards from his mother and selling them at half price.
Public Information Officer Jennifer Johnson of the Tennessee Department of Correction (TDOC) said Johnson has been serving a sentence at the Tennessee Prison for Women since 1998 for fraudulent credit card use, forgery and other financial crimes.
An internal prison investigation of Patricia Johnson was launched in May 2003, after a source from within the institution accused her of continuing to commit fraud while in prison.
“As soon as we started the investigation, we pulled [inmate Johnson] out of data entry while we looked into these allegations,” TDOC’s Johnson said.
“And, less than a month into our investigation, the Secret Service contacted us and let us know that they were working on a criminal case that involved the same inmate.”
TDOC has traditionally responded to job requests from TRICOR with a pool of inmates’ names that met requirements such as a GED and a good disciplinary record but nothing that excluded inmates with any kind of particular criminal background, according to Jennifer Johnson.
TRICOR revised its policy in May to say that inmates with a history of identity theft will no longer be candidates for data entry positions.
That change wasn’t soon enough for the Tennessee Department of Health, however, whose contract “expressly prohibited” TRICOR from using inmates convicted of crimes involving fraud, embezzlement or identity theft, according to Director of Communications Diane Denton.
Denton said the state health department notified TRICOR Sept. 29 that they were going to discontinue using them for data entry of records including death, marriage, divorce and induced termination of pregnancy.
“It came to our attention that they were perhaps not complying with the requirements of our contract in data, that there had been possibly a breach of security.” Denton said.
“We wanted to make sure that all of our requirements were met and did not feel that they were.”
Denton said TRICOR is looking into some new technology called ‘snippets,’ which would mean that no one person would have access to a complete record at any time.
If the new technology is implemented, the health department may consider using TRICOR again, Denton added.
TDOC’s Johnson noted that security measures are in place there to prevent this type of activity. Inmates are frisked or searched before they go to work at the prison and before they leave, she said.
“TRICOR’s data entry scans 3.5 million documents a year and they have been doing that for more than a decade and this is the first time that anything like this has come up,” she said.
“Any of this information that [inmate Johnson] would have obtained, she would have had to have committed it to memory.
“This is not an easy thing that she pulled off … what she pulled off is next to impossible. If it were that easy, it would have been done time after time.”
Shouldn't this have raised a red flag with anyone that perhaps this woman shouldn't have been given access to credit card data???
Tiger player indicted for ID theft, reports say By Amos Maki
October 16, 2003
A University of Memphis basketball player has been indicted on charges of identity theft, according to news reports last night.
U of M sophomore Clyde Wade and eight others have been indicted for their roles in a conspiracy to use other people's identities to gain credit.
Wade, a walk-on with the Tigers basketball team and graduate of Kingsbury High School in Memphis, is accused of getting fraudulently obtained gift cards from Ida Morton Wade, his mother.
Police said the scheme began when an inmate, Patricia Johnson, gained access to the personal information while doing data entry at the Tennessee Prison for Women in Nashville.
The inmate would then work with those outside the prison to open credit cards at local department stores.
According to WMC Channel 5, University Athletic Director R.C. Johnson said in a prepared statement, "Wade has been suspended from participation in University athletic activities -- including basketball -- pending resolution of the matter."
The Daily Helmsman tried unsuccessfully to reach Johnson for comment.
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Instead, they have them do suck jobs like data entry, something which also gives them a tremendous opportunity to thieve.
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