Identity Theft Hurts

If you’ve been reading my commentary long enough, you know I place the onus of financial identity theft on the company or the government agency that enables a victim’s identity theft. Read on to learn how James Plummer lost his rental property to an identity thief, and how the Mercer County Clerk made it so easy for her to steal it.

Identity theft victim fights to regain house
Sunday, December 14, 2008
BY LINDA STEIN
James Plummer has spent the better part of five years trying to wake up from an identity theft nightmare.

Imagine discovering that a house you’ve owned for years was somehow put into another person’s name, that the false owner had taken out mortgages against it, and that as far as county officials were concerned, you were legally dead and had no claim to your own property.

That’s what happened to Plummer in connection with a Trenton house he owned and rented out.

Plummer’s former tenant Ronda Coons, also known as Rhonda Lige, had allegedly falsified documents stating he died in 1992 and naming her as executor of the estate.

Using those documents and a deed on which she allegedly signed the name of a local lawyer, Coons went to the Mercer County Clerk’s Office in 2001 and had the house, at 920 Lamberton St., put into her name, according to Plummer and his attorney.

“This woman took my house away,” the Westampton man said. “The county gave it away. How could they not check and see if there was an existing mortgage?”

“She had a death certificate,” Plummer said. “I don’t know how she got my Social Security number and my date of birth. She made my death before me and my wife were married.”

What happened to Plummer is happening throughout the United States. According to the San Diego-based Identity Theft Resource Center, in 2006 there were 15 million victims of some form of identity theft, or about 28 victims every minute.

The clue that alerted Plummer to his situation came in the mail one day.

“When we received a property tax statement at our house addressed to Rhonda Lige, we contracted the Trenton tax office,” Plummer said. “They said we should contact the county clerk. We did and they told us Lige owned our property.

“When I pointed out that I was not dead, so they should re-record it in my name, the clerk told us they couldn’t do that,” he said. They advised him to get a good lawyer.

Although Coons has convictions for identity theft and is in jail awaiting trial on other identity theft charges, she has not been charged in this case, which is under investigation.

According to the clerk’s office, proper procedures were followed on its end.

Coons had presented what appeared to be a valid deed bearing the signature of a local attorney. That lawyer, who asked that his name not be used in this article, confirmed that the signature on the deed had been forged.

Mercer County Clerk Paula Sollami Covello explained that her office is required to record deeds if the proper paperwork is presented.

It took Plummer almost five years to get the property put back in his name.

“She took out loans against the equity totaling over $60,000,” he said. “It took some time for the lenders to release the liens because they thought I might be involved in robbing myself.”

Meanwhile, Plummer said his losses are more than $30,000 because vandals broke into and damaged the empty house. Also, he said that a pending sale fell through because the title was not in his name.

“Vandals took out all my copper and destroyed the house on the inside,” Plummer said. “We did finally get it back in our name,” he said. “We spent over $10,000 to get it back in livable condition to get a certificate of occupancy.”

To add insult to injury, he said that the city fined him $275 for overgrown weeds.

“This house is costing me all kinds of money,” he said. “We wanted to sue her but were told we wouldn’t recoup our losses.

Coons’ “father’s first name was James,” said lawyer Joe Mooney, who represents Plummer. “She took her father’s death certificate and modified it to read James Plummer. She came up with an executor’s short certificate and phonied up documents that made it appear that Jim was dead and made her in charge of his estate.”

According to documents obtained when Plummer filed suit in Chancery Court, Coons recorded the deed on June 5, 2001, with the Mercer County Clerk’s Office, then took out a mortgage on the property with American General Finance for $35,750 about 10 days later.

“They’re required to accept for recording whatever comes in the door,” Mooney said of the county clerk.

Coons also took out another loan with One Stop Financial Services, which placed a lien on the property after she didn’t repay it.

Then another judgment was placed on the property by the Office of the Public Defender, which is how Mooney was finally able to find Coons. She was in jail.

“We had a hard time tracking her down,” Mooney said. “She moved like the wind.”

Eventually, Mooney was able to get the property put back in Plummer’s name after filing a complaint in the Chancery Division of Superior Court.

Coons might have gotten away with the alleged fraud if she had “continued to pay her rent and not been evicted,” Mooney said. “He would have never found out. All the mail was going to her at the property address. It was a rental property, and Jim had no way of knowing it.”

Meanwhile, Coons, who has convictions for theft by deception and forgery dating from the mid-1990s, is in jail with five unrelated cases pending against her, said Assistant Prosecutor James Scott.

Her defense attorney, Christopher Garrenger, declined comment.

She was charged with insurance fraud in 2007 for allegedly changing the date of an accident to when she would be covered and reporting the crash to two insurers, Scott said.

Along with her husband, Jacob, Coons was arrested in July for charges of identity theft and attempted theft, Scott said. Those alleged thefts occurred over four months against several people whose information was obtained from various sources, he said.

Coons also has been indicted on charges of identity theft, theft by deception and forgery from a case in January, Scott said.

“It’s terrible when identity theft happens to citizens,” Scott said. “It’s a terrible crime and one that we take very seriously.”

Meanwhile, Scott said, his office is investigating what happened with Plummer’s deed.

Coons was indicted in October by the state Attorney General’s Office for allegedly using a state job with the Department of Community Affairs to steal identities, officials said.

Coons had been hired by a temporary employment agency. A spokesman for the department said a background check had been the agency’s responsibility.

Coons remains in custody pending a Jan. 20 hearing for a violation of probation on a previous theft charge, Scott said.

Do you think one of those “credit protection” tools or services would have helped Mr. Plummer in this scenario? Hardly.