http://cbs11tv.com/local/local_story_290175010.html

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Oct 17, 2006 4:41 pm US/Central

Tarrant County Authorities Indict 6 For ID Theft

Mary Stewart
Reporting

(CBS 11 News) FORT WORTH Tarrant County authorities have indicted six people for stealing the identities of nearly 1000 North Texans. The investigation has taken two years because there are so many victims.

Prosecutors say that a woman serving her sentence on the sheriff's work detail managed to steal voter registration documents being recycled from the County Elections Office in 2004. Landa Mena Deon Anderson has a history of charges on theft and forgery.

Authorities do not know how she managed to hide the document, but they say she stole a voter registration printout while on recycling duty.

Investigators may not have discovered the theft, but a bank noticed a pattern of victims' last names. "She had taken on of the printouts and it was the Ws," prosecutor Lori Varnell said.

Suzanne Henderson, the Tarrant County Clerk, is in charge of paper recycling. She suspects election office workers dumped sensitive information in the bin. "They're placed in that toter and it's just like throwing it in the trash in any open area," Henderson said. "(It's possible for) anyone to go through," she added.

Prosecutors say the crime ring spent lavishly at Lowe's and Sam's Club, and even applied for online bank loans.

Among those also indicted are Torri Anderson, Landa's cousin and a receptionist at a gynecologist office in North Richland Hills. Officials say she made copies of social security numbers, credit cards and insurance details from 200 patients.

"It's particularly disturbing," Varnell said. "They infiltrated the doctor's office where we go and place our trust in our doctors and give them our most intimate information."

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