Identity Theft

Informative Post by Susan As Wikipedia notes, identity theft is basically “a form of fraud . . . in which someone pretends to be someone else by assuming that person's identity, typically in order to access resources or obtain credit and other benefits in that person's name.” This post is about an identity theft case involving a juvenile and an email password. The case is In re Rolando S., 197 Cal.App.4th 936, 129 Cal.Rptr.3d 49 (California Court of Appeals 2011) and this, very generally, is how it arose: [Rolando S.] was one of several recipients of an unsolicited text message providing the password to the victim's email account. [He] used the victim's email password and account to gain access to her Facebook account, where he posted, in her name, prurient messages on two of her male friends' pages (walls) and altered her profile description in a vulgar manner. The victim found out about the messages and informed her father, who removed the messages from her account and later called the police. In re Rolando S., supra. Rolando S. “admitted to the police that he posted the messages from the victim's Facebook account and altered her profile.” In re Rolando S., supra. A juvenile petition was then filed against him, alleging that he committed one count of identity theft under California Penal Code § 530.5(a). In re Rolando S., supra.