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Jul 11, 2008 3:57 pm US/Central
Police Arrest Texas Man In Calif. ID Theft Case
DALLAS (AP) ―
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Dallas Co. Sheriff's Dept.
A man has been charged in Texas in an identity theft case that affected more than 1,100 students at the University of California, Irvine, authorities said Friday.
Michael Tyrone Thomas, 27, of Fort Worth, was arrested Tuesday at his home there and is charged by Dallas County prosecutors with one count of the fraudulent use of identifying information, UC Irvine campus police Chief Paul Henisey said.
Thomas was being held on $300,000 bail in Dallas County and will be prosecuted there, Henisey said. Attempts to determine if Thomas had retained an attorney were unsuccessful.
Authorities allege Thomas breached computer security at the Dallas office of United Healthcare's department of student resources while he worked there in December 2007.
Henisey said Thomas stole a file containing the names and Social Security numbers of 1,132 UCI graduate and medical students. He said fake tax returns were filed for 163 of them.
United Healthcare released a statement Friday that said, in part, - "We are outraged that a former employee may have illegally accessed information regarding certain University of California Irvine students and may have used the information for criminal purposes."
The thefts came to light in March, after students began telling police that someone was filing fraudulent tax returns and collecting the refunds using their private information.
University computer experts were unable to find a breach in their system and federal and local officials ultimately determined all the students were enrolled in the university's insurance program for graduate students, which was administered by United Healthcare.
United Healthcare officials say letters have been sent 'to each of the 1,100 UCI students whose information was on the data file in question' and the Minneapolis-based company has said it will pay for credit monitoring. UCI is also offering loans to the affected students.
Henisey said he doesn't believe the rest of the names in the file were used because identity theft reports have dropped off sharply in recent weeks, with no new cases reported since late June.
(© 2009 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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