Identity theft: Florida top state in country for identity theft complaints.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – David Sanders is a victim of identity theft. He told us, “They had made a credit card with my number and name on it.” He says it didn’t take long for him to find out someone was using his identity and spending his money in another state. “I got an email that I had a charge from a Kohl’s in Dallas, Texas of all places, and I was right here in Delray Beach.”

According to the Federal Trade Commission, South Florida is number one on the list for identity theft complaints, which includes Palm Beach County. Port Saint Lucie ranks number 7.

Reggie Montgomery, a retired police officer, has advice on how to protect your identity.

“Make sure that their wallet does not get out of their sight, number one.” He says don’t give out your date of birth or social security number to someone over the phone.

“If you go into your doctor’s office, they don’t need your social security number. You see it on every form in every doctor’s office, they don’t need it. They have your insurance information,” said Montgomery.

When you throw out personal information in the garbage, such as credit cards or canceled checks, shred them.

He says the best shredder is the cross shredder, which makes the paper look like confetti.

Montgomery says “And when you throw the shredding out, put liquid on it so that nobody is going to go through it and try to put it back together.”

You can also protect yourself with the right mailbox. “Have a locking mailbox, make sure that nobody can get into your mailbox, that’s another way people get your information,” he said.

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South Florida ID thief who testified to U.S. Senate strikes again.

After stealing the identities of several South Floridians — including a former owner of the New York Mets — Jeffrey Emil Groover made it seem like he was truly sorry for his crimes.

He even testified to a U.S. Senate committee while he was serving a federal prison term in 2004 and offered some helpful suggestions to lawmakers about how to stop people like him from victimizing others.

But on Thursday, Groover admitted that he again used other people’s identities to steal money by claiming the victims had signed over checks to him for pre-paid pest extermination and disinfection services.

Groover, 52, who recently was listed at addresses in West Palm Beach and in Broward County, had no comment after the brief hearing in federal court in Fort Lauderdale. He faces a maximum of 20 years in prison and up to $1 million in fines when he is sentenced in August.

Records show he was released from federal prison in 2006 after serving a four-year term for credit card fraud that involved stealing the identities of several people, including Nelson Doubleday, the wealthy Jupiter Island resident who formerly co-owned the Mets.

Groover went on a yearlong spending spree at the time on lines of credit he obtained under other people’s names. Doubleday tipped off authorities, and when they investigated further, they found Groover also had used Palm Beach philanthropist Donald Burns’ identity to buy a BMW, a Rolex watch and rare coins, according to court records.

Groover also was ordered to pay more than $270,000 in restitution.

While Groover was serving his prison term for those offenses, he addressed the U.S. Senate’s Special Committee on Aging in March 2004, telling senators that he had used the internet to obtain personal information about wealthy targets, open credit card accounts and even tap into his victims’ bank accounts.

“I came here to assist my country, and in some small way to find redemption for what I’ve done,” Groover testified to the committee. “I lost my home, my business, my freedom and most of all my wife and children for what I did. The punishment is severe, and rest assured that I will not do it again. However, that will not stop other people from continuing to do this type of crime due to the ease in which it can be done.”

He went on to outline his suggestions for curtailing such opportunities and apologized to his victims. He blamed the failure of a small internet service provider that he owned in the late 1990s for putting him in financial difficulty and said he resorted to fraud to keep his business going and support his family.

Groover’s more recent crimes came to light when a check-processing service noticed and reported suspicious activity in a merchant account he opened in March 2012. According to court records, Groover had set up a West Palm Beach-based corporation called Affordable Pest Protection Inc., which IRS criminal investigators and federal prosecutors said “purported to be a provider of pest extermination and disinfection services.”

Analysts at the check-processing service became suspicious of Groover’s transactions within days of him opening the account and they notified authorities. Groover had attempted to cash several U.S. Treasury tax refund checks, records show.

When the company asked him to explain the activity, Groover told them he had met with each of the people named on the tax refund checks and they had agreed to turn the proceeds of those checks over to his business.

“Groover further explained that he was trying to mimic automobile dealerships’ promotions by allowing clients to bring him their tax refund checks and apply the refund amounts to pre-paid pest control services,” agents wrote.

When agents tracked down the people identified on the checks, they found that none of them had filed the income tax returns or authorized anyone to use their information.

One of the victims was a man who had died in Broward County in April 2008, and other victims included an Oregon man and women from Tampa and Michigan, according to the criminal complaint.

Groover pleaded guilty Thursday to four counts of making and presenting false claims to the IRS. He reached a plea agreement after learning prosecutors planned to file more charges, including several counts of aggravated identity theft, against him, according to court filings.

Groover admitted he had targeted more than 10 victims and the intended loss was between $200,000 and $400,000, U.S. District Judge Robin Rosenbaum said in court.

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Attacks on mail carriers have become more brazen, postal workers say.

It’s not only the glaring sun and the threat of dog bites that South Florida’s mail carriers must contend with as they go door to door delivering the mail — sometimes they come under physical attack from the people who live along their delivery routes. From criminals intent on committing identity fraud to customers with poor anger management skills, letter carriers say they have noticed an increase in such attacks in recent years.

“We have more brazen offenders approaching letter carriers and even threatening them or assaulting them,” said Ivan Ramirez, a U.S. Postal Inspector in Miramar. “A lot of people don’t realize that if you mess with a federal employee, then it’s a federal crime and you could do some serious prison time.”

Among the cases prosecuted in federal court in recent years were a father and son from Oakland Park, Donald and Kevin Lincks, now 64 and 31, who were sentenced to a year in prison for beating a postal worker in June 2009 after he refused to give them their mail on the street because he didn’t know them.

A Palm Beach County man, David Jason Agosto, 36, is serving 8 1/2 years in federal prison for assaulting a postal worker who he believed was flirting with his girlfriend while delivering mail at her workplace, the state Department of Children & Families in Lake Worth in 2008.

And three men are serving lengthy federal prison terms for their roles in the December 2010 murder of postal worker Bruce Parton, 60, of Pembroke Pines, who was shot while being robbed of a master key in north Miami-Dade.

The U.S. Postal Service said it does not keep statistics on such crimes, but trains workers on how to stay safe and pursues criminal charges against offenders.

Assaulting postal employees can have serious consequences — it is a federal crime that is prosecuted under the same law as assaulting an FBI agent. Attacking a federal employee while they’re carrying out their duties carries punishments that range from one to 20 years in prison.

Ramirez said the downturn in the economy and the prevalence of identity thieves, who sometimes target letter carriers because they want to rob master keys that open community mailboxes, have coincided with more attacks on carriers.

Court records show that at least seven people have faced federal prosecution for assaulting and injuring letter carriers in Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties since 2008. Those numbers don’t tell the whole story, officials said, because assailants are also prosecuted for related crimes, like fraud or robbery, and can also face state charges.

In federal court in West Palm Beach last week, U.S. Magistrate Judge Dave Lee Brannon praised prosecutors for their evenhanded approach to a complicated case involving a mentally ill woman who investigators said attacked a letter carrier delivering mail in Lantana in September.

Mailman Bruce Tabano, 60, suffered a concussion, chipped tooth and facial cuts when Donna Rose Angelo, 49, attacked him at his work truck near North Ridge Drive and Flamingo Drive, according to the complaint.

Tabano told investigators Angelo told him to give her the mail, punched him in the face, then came at him again in an aggressive manner.

“The carrier then reached for his dog spray and heard the woman say ‘If you spray me, I’ll f—ing kill you, I’m crazy,'” postal inspectors wrote.

Angelo, who has a history of violent disturbances, told police that she did not understand when they read her legal rights to her, tried to run off and said she didn’t mean to hit the mailman, investigators said.

Her diagnosis was not made public, but her lawyer said Angelo would pursue an insanity defense if formal charges are filed. Experts said she is mentally incompetent and she has spent the past few months being treated in a federal medical prison in Texas.

Prosecutor John McMillan told the judge Wednesday that efforts to restore her to competency have failed. Brannon ordered that she be assessed to see if she poses a danger to the community before deciding what to do next.

“These are not easy cases, these are not easy issues,” Brannon said, adding that he felt prosecutors were looking out for the best interests of the victim, suspect and community.

Mike Gill, the president of Branch 1071 of the National Association of Letter Carriers which represents workers in Miami-Dade, southern Palm Beach and most of Broward, said his members have reported an increase in assaults, though not a dramatic one. Gill said he thinks some of it is linked to the rise in identity theft.

“It’s definitely been more of an issue in recent years and we warn our members that if something doesn’t feel right, they should get out of the area and involve their supervisor and the police,” he said.

Just as mail carriers look out for their customers, alerting authorities when they notice something suspicious, Gill said he hopes people in the community look out for the safety of postal service employees. “Letter carriers are out there six days a week, and we try to be the eyes and ears for the community.”

Ramirez, the postal inspector who investigates crimes, said the postal service has increased its investigative efforts in recent years and introduced programs to make sure employees are looking out for their personal safety.

Debbie Fetterly, a U.S. Postal Service spokeswoman in South Florida, said employee safety is a priority.

“USPS always tells employees that they are our most valuable resource and that we want to deliver them home safely each day,” Fetterly said. Safeguards include special training and awareness programs as well as having a threat assessment team that evaluates and takes action on serious threats made to employees, she said.

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ID thefts of 49 cops lead to crime ring, feds say.

The investigation began in March with the discovery that 49 Aventura police officers and six other people connected to the city government were victims of identity theft and tax fraud in the 2011 income tax season, authorities said.

On Tuesday, the inquiry led to six South Florida residents being indicted on charges they operated a major identity theft ring out of a Pompano Beach home on the 1200 block of Northeast Fifth Street.

The four men and two women are accused of using the money to do everything from make child support payments online to take vacations in Orlando and rent BMWs at Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach and Miami airports.

Brothers Jeffery McCarthy and Christopher McCarthy, their girlfriends Marysol Hernandez and Teresa Calderon, cousin Floyd Harper, and friend Brian Gamble, all in their 20s and 30s, face multiple counts of fraud and identity theft in federal court. They all deny the allegations.

The fraud involved filing unauthorized income tax returns on behalf of victims and opening lines of credit, investigators said.

According to court records filed by detectives, the Aventura Police Department discovered earlier this year that 49 police officers, a civilian employee of the department, a retiree, three other city workers and a spouse had all been victimized by tax fraud and identity theft in the prior year.

Detectives wrote in court records that they uncovered a link to the Pompano Beach home the McCarthy brothers shared and found that the Internet service at that address had been used to file about 432 tax returns in a two-week period in January.

Investigators also found that USAA Federal Savings Bank employees were conducting a separate fraud investigation regarding the same residence related to about $2 million in lines of credit opened using victims’ names and variations of the same Pompano Beach address. The six were arrested last month.

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