Denver Paper Chronicles 40-year Identity Mix-up

For Gary Heggs, identity theft hasn’t been a temporary annoyance — it’s a chronic condition. The St. Charles, Mo. lawyer profiled in this Denver Post story has had to endure repeated questions and visits from law enforcement officials for nearly 40 years because of a booking mix-up involving an unidentified criminal suspect in the ‘70s.

The ordeal began in 1971, when Heggs had his wallet stolen as he and a friend swam in Lake Michigan. This was back when driver’s licenses didn’t even contain photos. The thief traveled to Denver, where he was arrested on Christmas Day 1971 for burglarizing an apartment.

At his booking, the thief, a white man, gave his name as Dozier Slay Jr., a black man. The police didn’t believe him. Then they found Gary Heggs’ driver’s license, and entered that name in his file. That name stuck.

The thief eventually broke out of prison, in 1973, and has since been on the lam. It’s not known whether he has used Heggs’ name after his prison break, but periodically the real Gary Heggs finds out just how badly the Colorado Department of Corrections wants the guy who went over the wall.

Heggs has been questioned about the thief’s whereabouts so many times — during traffic stops and even coming back into the country at Customs checkpoints following a vacation abroad — that he has come to expect it, according to the newspaper. He knows the look on policemen’s faces as they approach his car, their hands on their guns. Once, in 1976, he even dropped his trousers for authorities to prove he didn’t share the suspect’s tattoos or appendectomy scar.

Heggs says he won’t change his name, since he has built a solid reputation as a lawyer in St. Charles. And Katherine Sanguinetti, corrections spokeswoman in Colorado, says there’s simply nothing to be done once ID thieves’ aliases get into the system, the Post reports. “They can say they are Mickey Mouse, and we have to refer to them as Mickey Mouse until they are discharged,” she is quoted.

The longevity of the confusion recalls an Oregon man’s 35-year run-in with an identity thief, but that ended happily when the suspect was arrested. Tom Lesh, 66, of Coos Bay, had been dogged for three decades after someone using his name started running up debts eventually totaling $100,000.

But the thief, Clark Mower, 58, of Seattle, was arrested last summer. In December he was sentenced to two years in prison and one year of supervised release for aggravated identity theft.