Colorado Court of Appeals People v. Perez 10CA0587

Decision here.

   Some lady who was on unemployment got a call from her caseworker because she was supposedly working at a barbecue restaurant.  Turned out that it was just Perez working at said restaurant using her social security number, and that he had been doing this for a few years at various restaurants.  Perez was arrested.

   He was charged with identity theft and criminal impersonation.  He was convicted, and he appealed.

   The court of appeals reversed his conviction.  Regarding identity theft, there was never any evidence presented that he actually knew the social security number belonged to someone (as opposed to simply being fictitious).  Without that proof, they were missing an element.

   The court's reasoning for reversing criminal impersonation was that the prosecution never presented evidence that he couldn't have been employed without providing a social security number, so therefore he wasn't using the fake number in a fictitious capacity.  Yeah, I know.  It doesn't make sense to me, either.  In any event, after Perez was charged the Criminal Impersonation statute has been updated, effectively closing this weird little loophole for all future cases.