According to the Pew Research Center, nearly all U.S. teens say they use the internet every day, with almost half reporting they are online “almost constantly.” As every parent knows, the internet is a double-edged sword: it is an incredibly useful tool, but it is fraught with potential danger for our children—especially when unsupervised.
Our client is a high school student in Maryland who, facing difficult mental health issues, found himself in the middle of a “catfishing” scandal. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received a report from several internet sites for potential “self-exploitation” by a user. Allegedly, our client used photographs that female classmates posted online to create profiles on various websites and have explicit conversations with others online. As a result of the reports, the police began an investigation.
Though we opened a line of communication with the State’s Attorney’s Office to prevent charges from being brought, the prosecutor filed a juvenile delinquency petition alleging our client violated Maryland’s identity theft statue, Crim. Law § 8-301(c)(2). That statute makes it a crime to “knowingly and willfully assum[e] the identity of another person…with the fraudulent intent to…obtain a benefit, credit, good, service, or other thing of value.” Prosecutors typically use this statute as a tool to hold defendants accountable for using another’s identity to open a credit card, or other similar offenses.
After the petition was filed, we analyzed the case law and presented a strong legal defense. Though the conduct seemed reflexively “bad,” the facts did not meet the legal elements of the identity theft statute. Put simply, “value” is an essential element of identity fraud. Parks v. State, 259 Md. App. 109, 120 (2023). Because the punishments for identity theft are premised on theft between $100 and $1,500, “value” necessarily means monetary value. See Md. Crim. Law. § 8-301(g). Effectively marshaling our argument, we convinced the State’s Attorney’s Office that the explicit conversations could not legally satisfy the monetary value element and that their case was insufficient to adjudicate our client as a delinquent. As a result of our advocacy, the prosecutor dismissed the charges at a pre-trial conference, over strong objections by the complainants and their families.
If you have a juvenile criminal case or investigation that you would like to discuss, or have questions about identity theft in general, please call Eric Bacaj, Esq. at (443) 909-7503.
Disclaimer: This blog is informative in nature. The information contained herein is not to be considered legal advice and there is no attorney-client relationship formed between Silverman Thompson and the reader.