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Woman allegedly impersonated prosecutor, dropped charges against herself

unionleader.com

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Re: Woman allegedly impersonated prosecutor, dropped charges against herself

#151
post #84

One has to wonder what legal frauds, asset grabs, and impersonations have transpired that were never discovered. Some perspective on this is the story of Alves dos Reis ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alves_dos_Reis ) who in 1924 stole ~1% of Portugal's GDP in bank notes printed under forged orders. The scheme may have never been uncovered had Reis succeeded in maintaining a controlling interest in the Bank of Portug…

Having someone else do your prison time was fairly common. Now with more cooperation between organizations and improved biometrics it has dropped. Different people would be arrested, show up to court, or enter the prison. Impossible for organizations downstream to detect or assume a switch had happened.

Positively identifying people was very difficult before fingerprinting came along. The police used all kinds of schemes of erratic accuracy.

Re: Woman allegedly impersonated prosecutor, dropped charges against herself

#153
A RISKS Digest classic:

A prisoner was wrongly released after a fax was received from a grocery store stating that the Kentucky Supreme Court had demanded his release

http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/24/65#subj7.1

https://web.archive.org/web/20070426034707/http://www.cnn.co...

There are numerous examples in news reports.

"Who are you?" is the most expensive question in information technology. No matter how you get it wrong, you're fucked.

Re: Woman allegedly impersonated prosecutor, dropped charges against herself

#155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One could argue the internal barriers are unnecessary if "trust but verify" works. In this case, it worked; she was able to play the system until verification identified something was wrong, and now she gets to go to jail over it. (Technical systems often need more stringent protections because "screw around and go to jail" isn't a threat that, say, Facebook can bring to bear).

The mistake here is messing with the legal system itself. Lots of scams and schemes can fly under the radar, but as soon as you start committing fraud against the court , you're done . Just ask the con artists at Prenda Law how lying to federal judges went: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prenda_Law https://www.popehat.com/tag/prenda-law/

Unless you're sufficiently large. The RIAA, Tobacco industry, ExxonMobile, POTUS.

Re: Woman allegedly impersonated prosecutor, dropped charges against herself

#156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many times have people gotten away with something similar without every being discovered, though? It could be very many.

There's no such thing as a perfect crime.

"The secret of a great success for which you are at a loss to account is a crime that has never been found out, because it was properly executed."

-- Balzac

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/09/09/fortune-crime/

Re: Woman allegedly impersonated prosecutor, dropped charges against herself

#157
post #3

archive link: https://web.archive.org/web/20201028172931/https://www.union...

Thanks. Can't believe sites still do the 'we're unable to show you a page because ... GDPR'.

I love the ones that show a big notice like "Your country is very important to us....you're blocked".

Re: Woman allegedly impersonated prosecutor, dropped charges against herself

#158
post #144

I guess this brings up and interesting issue -- once someone knows the ins and outs of a system, sometimes there are very few barriers internally to check that an order/paperwork is legit. There was a story in WSJ like last week about how the Japanese red stamp / seal still survives and is a barrier to them adopting new technology for practical every day speeding up of tasks. And keeps things like faxes around unnece…

> once someone knows the ins and outs of a system, sometimes there are very few barriers internally to check that an order/paperwork is legit. It sounds to me like they are using security-by-obscurity, as well as easily forgeable proofs such as "signatures" or drivers licenses (they're only as secure as your ability to spot a forgery). Hence why anyone who is knowledgable and determined enough, can easily crack the s…

The usual way to fix these sorts of things is to ensure there are multiple independent barriers to fraud. 2 factor authorization is an example. Double entry bookkeeping is another. Independent audits is another. Separate checks for unusual activity is another.

Re: Woman allegedly impersonated prosecutor, dropped charges against herself

#159
post #84

One has to wonder what legal frauds, asset grabs, and impersonations have transpired that were never discovered. Some perspective on this is the story of Alves dos Reis ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alves_dos_Reis ) who in 1924 stole ~1% of Portugal's GDP in bank notes printed under forged orders. The scheme may have never been uncovered had Reis succeeded in maintaining a controlling interest in the Bank of Portug…

Here in Germany we had a few cases where persons worked as hospital doctors for a few years without a license or diploma or even any medical training. They usually submitted a fake license to the hospital. There was a spectacular case in the 1990s where a former postal employee named himself "Dr. med. Dr. phil. Clemens Bartholdy" and later worked as a senior physician in a psychiatric hospital, also giving lectures [0]

> By chance, a co-worker recognised him on July 10, 1997, forcing him to go into hiding. At that time, an appointment was already set for an interview with Hans Geisler, then Saxony's Minister of State for social affairs, health and family, on the occasion of Postel's appointment to a professorship and to the position of chief of medicine at Saxony's hospital for psychiatry and neurology at Arnsdorf near Dresden.

In another case, a former barber worked for 20 years as a doctor, eventually becoming chief physician in a children's hospital [1].

Back in the 2000s there was a case of a medical student who failed her final exams 3 times, and instead of leaving university as she had to, she just continued her studies without the possibility to take any exams. After a few years, she printed a fake license and a fake diploma and secured a job as an assistance doctor in the children's hospital of the Hamburg University Hospital, eventually becoming a respected colleague (she was, after all, actually trained to be a doctor). After a few years, she failed to hand in the original license and her fraud came to light [2].

Last year, a fake anesthesiologist was uncovered in Fritzlar. She had no formal training and had handed in a fake diploma to get the job [3]. No one noticed until last year, at which time she had already accidentally killed 4 people.

Given that there are several such cases each year, chances are very high that there are still some fake doctors practising here.

We also had the famous Captain of Köpenick [4], an ex-convict who in 1906 put on a uniform, rounded up a few soliders, occupied a city hall in Berlin, arrested several employees, had them transported to the main Berlin police station for interrogation, ordered to block all local telephone calls for an hour, confiscated 4000 marks and disappeared. It took 10 days to arrest him.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gert_Postel

[1] https://www.aerztezeitung.de/Panorama/Hochstapler-im-weissen...

[2] https://www.welt.de/welt_print/article1142757/Falsche-Kinder...

[3] https://www.fr.de/hessen/hessen-drei-falsche-aerzte-einem-ja...

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Voigt

Re: Woman allegedly impersonated prosecutor, dropped charges against herself

#160
post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having someone else do your prison time was fairly common. Now with more cooperation between organizations and improved biometrics it has dropped. Different people would be arrested, show up to court, or enter the prison. Impossible for organizations downstream to detect or assume a switch had happened.

Jeez I’m wondering what the going price would be for that today.

Probably more of a price in terms of favors and relationships than money. e.g. If a mob could somehow bust you out then you belong to them for some percent of the prison time. Just a guess though.
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