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Monday, 11 September 2006
She faces unknown future - Will she always be haunted by the theft that shook her deeply?
July 3, 2005 - Times-Dispatch
Lori Campbell's life was turned upside down on June 25, 2003. She lived in Clayton County, Ga., with her twins.
She was at home cooking dinner that evening. There was a knock at the door. Campbell answered the door and saw about 20 police cars parked outside "all the way down the block. You would have thought they were coming to pick up a mass murderer."
When she let the police in, Campbell said they immediately told her she was under arrest but did not tell her why. "I didn't know what was going on," she said. "They ransacked my house, took my computer disks and even refused to allow me to go to the bathroom."
"The officers insisted my name was 'Laura Campbell,'" she added. "They put me in handcuffs in front of my children," Campbell continued, stopping to cry softly while telling the story. "I'm sorry," she said. "Every time I go back to it, I have a hard time."
That day was just the beginning of the ordeal that Campbell says "has ruined my life." At the time of her arrest, Campbell had been honorably discharged from the military for three years. She moved to Georgia in April 2000. By 2002, she had earned a real estate license. When she was arrested, she was a full-time student at Clayton State University studying psychology and human services. While in school, she was not working as a real estate agent.
Campbell soon learned that her real estate license may have been at the heart of her arrest. Someone had used her name to defraud house hunters of their money in surrounding counties. The crime: theft by deception.
Traici Crutchfield, a private investigator in Georgia who worked on Campbell's behalf, said the perpetrator behind the scheme posed as a real estate agent and ran ads in the newspaper for homes for sale under the Housing and Urban Development program. Keys to the HUD homes are the same within an area and not hard to obtain.
The scheme, according to Crutchfield, worked like this: The person showed the potential homebuyer a HUD house. Another couple was planted at the house who ostensibly was looking to create a sense of urgency. If the potential homebuyer liked the house, the perpetrator asked for money to pull a credit report, for the application fee and possibly for a down payment.
HUD spokesman Lee Jones said people seeking to buy one of the agency's homes are never asked for money up front but only after they have won a bid to buy the house.
During Campbell's arrest at her home, police saw photos of her around the house, and "accused me of losing a great deal of weight," she said. Police apparently were looking for the perpetrator, described in the police report as 5-foot-9, with dark eyes, bad teeth and who weighed about 200 pounds. Campbell is 5-foot-2, has hazel eyes, straight teeth and weighs about 130 pounds.
After her arrest, Campbell was taken to the Dekalb County jail and fingerprinted. She was able to post bond. Two days later, though, she was transferred to nearby Douglas County to face an identical charge by the same victim. The perpetrator had met with the potential homebuyer in both counties.
At the jail, she was told her name was Lori Ann Campbell. "I do not have a middle name," Campbell said. Campbell was jailed in Douglas County for two days.
Meanwhile, one of the Dekalb County arresting officers, a police sergeant, had compared Campbell's fingerprints with the same index fingerprint found on several money orders and checks used in the fraud scheme and saw they did not match.
On Oct. 4, 2004, he wrote a letter to the district attorney's office saying that "through my preliminary investigation, Lori Campbell does not appear to be the person who committed the fraud crimes."
The Dekalb County district attorney's office last week confirmed that the only charge against Campbell, theft by deception, was thrown out -- on Jan. 24. But the Douglas County case had proceeded. There, on the same day in January, Campbell was convicted of theft by deception, a felony, after a trial by a judge. The Douglas County district attorney's office said last week that Campbell was sentenced to 10 years of probation, 100 hours of community service, a fine of $2,500, and restitution to the victim of $975.
About 30 people may have been victimized in the real estate scheme, according to Crutchfield, the private investigator. Yet no one else has pursued it, and no other suspects materialized after the conviction. The case only went as far as it did, she said, because the victim who first said Campbell wasn't the perpetrator changed her story in the Douglas County court trial.
Because of her conviction, Campbell said she can't get a job. "I am fearful that even if we get the records cleared, information brokers will sell the false information and I will never be allowed to work and support my two children," she said.
"I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy," she said. "It's very embarrassing to me. People keep asking me, 'Why aren't you working?'" To pay her bills, Campbell said she is a disabled vet and receives "a little for that." She also receives child support. She owes about $9,000 for unpaid legal fees incurred during the trial.
Campbell has retained two new lawyers -- Mari Frank, a California attorney who specializes in identity theft cases and is providing her with pro bono services, and Kirby Clements Jr., a partner in The Clements Law Group LLC in Decatur, Ga., a litigation and criminal defense firm. Crutchfield, the private investigator, also is working with Clements on the case. The two lawyers are seeking a new trial for Campbell. "There is no question in my mind that she is innocent," Frank said.
Clements said, "I certainly think that she has a good chance on a motion for a new trial because of the evidence that did not come out in her trial."
Article pulled from: http://www.timesdispatch.com...
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