Well this certainly sends a wonderful message to anyone out there (with questionable character, I might add) who may have lost their job during this tough economy. Had he walked inside the same county pathologist house and stolen $143, he'd have gotten years in prison. But he walks into his house of cards, steals $143,000, and he gets 2 months? Something not sound right about that?
San Mateo man gets jail time in $120,000 credit fraud case - Inside Bay Area
San Mateo man gets jail time in $120,000 credit fraud case - Inside Bay Area
REDWOOD CITY — A San Mateo man accused of stealing nearly $120,000 from credit card companies by opening multiple bogus credit card accounts in the name of a county pathologist was sentenced Monday to two months in jail.
Rel Kempf, 63, pleaded no contest in December to four felony charges of identity theft, grand theft and forgery. He had initially been charged with 10 felony counts of grand theft and three counts of forgery.
Kempf opened five credit card accounts in the pathologist's name over an eight-year period, according to prosecutors. He set up the fraudulent accounts while working at a business that was run by the pathologist's wife and managed to run up the charges to nearly $120,000 by paying the minimum amount of the cards' balances each month, prosecutors said.
Kempf used the stolen funds to pay for vacation trips, airplane flights and other personal affairs, prosecutors said. Meanwhile, Kempf pulled the identical identity theft scam on his roommate to steal $23,000, according to prosecutors.
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