Katherine “Evidence Tampering” Wessling and Legal Advocates for Witness Intimidation — Special Identity Theft Edition (with Wire Fraud Bonus)

Today, I would like to talk a little bit about wire fraud and identity theft, and how they relate to the Federal statutes. In my own particular circumstance, I was a victim of witness intimidation (Title 18 § 1512, U.S.C.), being a party (a creditor) to a bankruptcy, where there were numerous efforts to impede any manner of lawful investigation of assets. This manner of fraudulent enterprise culminated in an abusive order of protection filing, which itself invoked Federal jurisdiction with the words, “Is a creditor in my bankruptcy,” contained in the original petition.

Why it is that the Family Law Courts would openly embrace and assist in the commission of Federal crimes is beyond me. I have no reasonable explanation for it.

So, let’s take a look at this, shall we?

Identity Theft was first criminalized at the Federal level as a part of the False Identification Crime Control Act of 1982. This was amended by the Identity Theft and Assumption Deterrence Act in 1998. This Act established Section 1028 (a) (7) of Chapter 47 of Title 18 as the Federal identity theft statute. It states:

(a) Whoever, in a circumstance described in subsection (c) of this section—

(7) knowingly transfers, possesses, or uses, without lawful authority, a means of identification of another person with the intent to commit, or to aid or abet, or in connection with, any unlawful activity that constitutes a violation of Federal law, or that constitutes a felony under any applicable State or local law;

First, the statute requires a “circumstance,” or predicate act, so that identity fraud will always consist of two actions taken together. Now, the first two paragraphs of subsection (c) deal with defrauding the Federal government (such as claiming you want some money to help battered women, then getting involved in a bankruptcy and actively assisting in witness intimidation, or using that money to go to court to prevent a song from being published), which is a big no-no. But paragraph 3 of subsection (c) invokes the powers reserved to Congress; the Commerce clause and the Postal clause:

(c) The circumstance referred to in subsection (a) of this section is that— (3) either—

(A) the production, transfer, possession, or use prohibited by this section is in or affects interstate or foreign commerce, including the transfer of a document by electronic means; or

(B) the means of identification, identification document, false identification document, or document-making implement is transported in the mail in the course of the production, transfer, possession, or use prohibited by this section.

Wire fraud, being under the Commerce clause, requires that the communication must cross state lines in order to fall into Federal jurisdiction (or affect interstate of foreign commerce in some way); the Postal clause, having reserved all matters in regulating the mail, does not. In either case, each subsequent incident constitutes a separate indictable offense.

The Federal Courts have held that “[t]here are two elements in mail fraud: (1) having devised or intending to devise a scheme to defraud (or to perform specified fraudulent acts), and (2) use of the mail for the purpose of executing, or attempting to execute, the scheme.” (Schmuck v. United States) Elsewhere, the Courts have determined that “wire fraud is identical to mail fraud statute except that it speaks of communications transmitted by wire.” (United States v. Frey) Further, “The fraud statutes speak alternatively of devising or intending to devise a scheme to defraud and do not require that the deception bear fruit for the wrongdoer or cause injury to the intended victim as a prerequisite to successful prosecution. [S]uccess of the scheme and loss by a defrauded person are not essential elements of the crime under 18 U.S.C. §§ 1341, 1343 . . . .” (United States v. Pollack)

§ 1028A of Title 18, U.S.C., became law in 2004. This statute established aggravated identity theft as a federal crime, prohibiting the use of identifying information belonging to another in certain federal offenses and in relation to terrorism offenses.

The general provisions in subsection (a) state that:

Whoever, during and in relation to any felony violation enumerated in subsection (c), knowingly transfers, possesses, or uses, without lawful authority, a means of identification of another person…

There are five chapters of the United States Code specified in subsection (c). These are: Chapter 47 (fraud and false statements), Chapter 63 (mail, bank, and wire fraud), Chapter 69 (nationality and citizenship), Chapter 75 (passports and visas), and Chapter 8 of title II of the Immigration and Nationality Act. Any violation in any of these chapters would serve as a predicate act. There are also several sections of various chapters specified in this subsection.

Which is to say, that the use of a false identity by wire communication which travels over state lines falls into federal jurisdiction.

It looks like that to target a creditor in a pending bankruptcy proceeding in such a manner would certainly qualify as:

(c) Whoever corruptly—
(2) otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so

One interesting thing to note is that these three— wire fraud (§ 1343), identity theft (§ 1028A), and witness intimidation (§ 1512)— are all listed as predicate acts under Chapter 96 of Title 18, known as the RICO statute.

It looks more and more like that would be the standard for Ms. Katherine “Evidence Tampering” Wessling and her scurvy crew of crooked cronies.

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