Bail set for indentity theft suspects
By CARRIE FRILLMAN cfrillman@daily-chronicle.com
DeKALB – Bail was set Wednesday for three Chicago men arrested by DeKalb authorities for their roles in a major identity theft ring.
One of the three, Victor P. Mitchell, 45, was able to post 10 percent of his $3,000 bail and was released. Bail for Sylvester Mickle, 36, was set at $250,000 and that for Kevin Mickle, 32, was set at $200,000 — $100,000 in DeKalb County and the same in Champaign County. The Mickles, who are brothers, remained in custody at the DeKalb County Jail Wednesday.
The three are all from Chicago but were arrested in the Villa Park area Tuesday morning by Illinois State Police. The Mickles each face six counts of identity theft in DeKalb County, Kevin Mickle faces additional counts in Champaign County and Mitchell faces 11 counts in DeKalb County.
Mitchell's bail was set at $3,000 because he lacks a criminal history, said prosecutor Julie Trevarthen. She also noted that Sylvester Mickle was under federal parole at the time of his arrest and Kevin Mickle faces charges in multiple jurisdictions – all were factors that were considered Wednesday during bond call.
The arrests were the culmination of months of investigation by the DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office in conjunction with numerous other agencies in other states, as well as within the federal government, said DeKalb County Sheriff Roger Scott. Officers began noticing in April that an influx of complaints about identify theft were filtering into the department, he said.
Victims reported they were missing money from their checking accounts, Scott said, noting that the ring's operators were duplicating checks. After obtaining checks, suspects would copy them and change personal information while keeping bank account numbers the same, he said.
Money from the duplicated checks would be taken from the bank accounts of the victims, who usually realized it when they received overdraft notices from their banks or wrote a check that bounced, Scott said.
All the victims so far identified by detectives have been Illinois residents, Scott said, but their bank information was used in Western and Southern Illinois, as well as Kentucky and Iowa. The ring was operated out of the South Side of Chicago, where the three men arrested Tuesday live.
Scott said the crimes have been happening for at least two years.
While he did not have exact dollar amounts, he estimated the ring has netted thousands of dollars from DeKalb County residents and hundreds of thousands of dollars in total.
Tuesday’s arrests are just from DeKalb County cases, Scott said, noting that additional charges could be filed in the ring as federal authorities get involved.
"There is a possibility of more arrests in the future but I don't have any on the immediate horizon," he said.
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