The Weekly Breach Breakdown Podcast by ITRC - Identity Thief Iowa Identity Theft Scheme - S5E18

Show Transcript

Welcome to the Identity Theft Resource Center’s (ITRC) Weekly Breach Breakdown for June 7, 2024. Thanks to Sentilink for their support of the podcast and the ITRC. Each week, we look at the most recent events and trends related to data security and privacy. This week, we examine an identity theft scheme that lasted over three decades.

In 2013, Jason Bateman and Melissa McCarthy starred in "Identity Thief", where McCarthy's character, Dawn Budgie, stole Jason Bateman's character Sandy Patterson's identity. After the police told him it would take up to a year to solve the case, Sandy embarked on a cross-country road trip to find Dawn and clear his name. We won't give the ending away, but let's just say someone ends up behind bars. We could not help but think of this movie as we looked at a wild identity theft scheme in Iowa, making the movie title “Identity Thief” the perfect title for this podcast episode.

How It Started

A former Iowa hospital administrator who lived under a false identity for more than three decades and caused the false imprisonment of a victim has pleaded guilty to one count of false statement to a national credit union administration institution and another count of aggravated identity theft. 

According to the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Northern District of Iowa, Matthew David Keirans and his identity theft victim worked together at a hotdog cart in the late 1980s. Keirans assumed the victim's identity obtaining false documents, including a Kentucky birth certificate, in the victim's name for over three decades.

Suspect Uses Victim’s Identity to Get High-Level Job

In 2013, Keirans became a high-level administrator in an Iowa City hospital. Keirans provided the hospital with false identification documents during the hiring process. After getting hired, Keirans worked remotely for the hospital. Keirans' access to the hospital's computer infrastructure was "the highest it could be," and Keirans "was the key administrator of critical systems."

Between August 2016 and May 2022, Keirans obtained eight vehicle and personal loans totaling over $200,000 from credit unions in the Northern District of Iowa using the victim's name, Social Security number and date of birth.

Victim Ends Up in Jail and a Mental Hospital

Keirans' victim found himself in jail and a mental hospital for almost two years after the victim entered the branch of the national bank in Los Angeles in 2019 and told a branch manager that he discovered that someone was using his credit and had accumulated large amounts of debt. However, the victim did not want to pay the debt and wanted to close his accounts at the bank. 

The victim presented the bank with his actual Social Security card, as well as an authentic State of California identification card. Due to the large amount of currency in the accounts, the branch manager asked the victim a series of security questions, which the victim could not answer. The national bank then called the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), which led to two felony charges after Keirans told the LAPD he had not given anyone permission to access his bank accounts.

Suspect is Finally Charged in Identity Theft Scheme

In January 2023, the victim contacted the Iowa City hospital's security department about Keirans. During an interview with the detective in July 2023, Keirans insisted that the victim was "crazy" and "needed help and should be locked up." However, when the detective presented Keirans with the results of the DNA testing, he confessed to the three-decade identity theft scheme. 

Keirans faces a mandatory minimum sentence of two years in prison and a possible maximum sentence of 32 years, a $1.25 million fine and five years of supervised release following any imprisonment. This is another example of no low being too low for an identity criminal. 

Contact the ITRC

If you want to know more about how to protect your business or personal information or think you have been the victim of an identity crime, you can speak with an expert ITRC advisor on the phone, via text message, chat live on the web, or exchange emails during our normal business hours (Monday-Friday, 6 a.m.-5 p.m. PST). Just visit www.idtheftcenter.org to get started.

Thanks again to Sentilink for their support of the ITRC and this podcast. We will return next week with another episode of the Weekly Breach Breakdown.