Caught in ID Theft's 'Horrible Web'

In typical identity theft cases, the thief goes after a bank account or a line of credit.
In Kathy Carpenter's case, the thief was even more bold.
A woman took Carpenter's professional identity as a real estate appraiser, using Carpenter's name and license number. She even appraised commercial and million-dollar properties that Carpenter, a residential appraiser, isn't licensed to do.
Jean Faye Dodge, former manager of a La Center appraisal company, is now in prison.
But Carpenter's troubles aren't over.
On Sept. 17, she'll ask a Clark County Superior Court judge to order Dodge to pay more than $70,000 in restitution. That would reimburse Carpenter for legal fees, a loss of business, and hours spent, as she told a judge at Dodge's sentencing, untangling this "horrible intricate web."
She has a feeling she doesn't know the full extent of the damage. She doesn't know, for example, how much money Dodge earned in her name. Were taxes paid on that? Is she going to have to explain this to the IRS?
"I just don't know what's coming," Carpenter, 49, said Thursday, a pile of paperwork on the counter in her Sunnyside neighborhood home. "Is this done?"
She remembers the moment she discovered what was going on.
On March 20, 2007, a lender called to ask if she could take a second look at a property.
"I said, 'I never looked at it in the first place,' " she recalled. The lender e-mailed a copy of the appraisal, and Carpenter's mind flashed to, years prior, when Dodge, manager of JJ Property & Appraisal Services, asked if she could accompany her on a site visit.
Carpenter, who works out of her home, was often hired by Dodge's company.
She remembered Dodge bemoaning the fact she was stuck in the office and wanting to see what appraisers did.
Carpenter read the e-mailed appraisal on a property in Columbia County, Ore., where she never works, and saw her name and license number.
"My whole body just wanted to implode," Carpenter said.

Feeling abandoned
She wasn't clear what to do next. She did everything victims of identity theft are advised to do, including flagging financial accounts. But then she was surprised that appraisal regulating agencies in Washington and Oregon didn't seem to know how to respond. Lenders didn't seem to want to hear about it. Only one lender agreed to search appraisal reports to find Carpenter's name; this is how she knows Dodge did at least 16.
Nobody seemed concerned Dodge appraised a commercial property and a million-dollar property, both of which are outside of what Carpenter's license allows.
Since none of the buyers had defaulted on the loans that had been based on fraudulent appraisals of what the property was worth, people just didn't care.
"Nobody had my back," Carpenter said.
Carpenter, who received her license in 1996, said her job had always provided a steady second income for her family while allowing her to stay home with her two daughters. Her husband Patrick, an airline pilot, was often away. But once she started spreading the word about Dodge, work dried up. Even accounting for the slowdown in the real estate market, she knew people were avoiding the drama.
She hired attorney Jamie Arledge, who thought she'd just send a cease-and-desist letter to Dodge and work out a settlement. But Dodge hired an attorney, a young lawyer who no longer works locally, and he dug in. Carpenter sued. Dodge's attorney tried arguing the suit should be dismissed because it had not been established that Carpenter was a human being, and therefore capable of suing.
The attorney brought another motion to dismiss, which was denied. He made the same argument a second time, before the same judge. Denied again. Each time, though, Carpenter was paying for Arledge to respond.
"It was going to be a fight," Arledge said.

Detective takes interest
Meanwhile, Carpenter had been filing police reports in every county where Dodge had done an appraisal.
At the Clark County Sheriff's Office, she met Detective Rick Buckner.
He took an interest in her story. He served Dodge with the civil lawsuit and asked about the appraisals.
Dodge admitted doing them. She said two licensed appraisers were working for her but she'd taken on the work.
"At one point, she commented that she was 'glad it was over with,' " Buckner wrote in a report.
Prosecutors stepped in.
Dodge, 57, initially faced more than a dozen charges, but took a plea deal. She wanted to enter a Newton plea, a type of guilty plea where she wouldn't admit anything except that prosecutors could win at trial.
No way, said Deputy Prosecutor Gene Pearce.
To spare Carpenter liability from the fraudulent appraisals, Dodge had to admit what she'd done.
On June 23, she pleaded guilty to one count of identity theft in the second degree, three counts of forgery and one count of forging a digital signature. Judge Robert Harris sentenced her to a year in prison.
Dodge's supporters described Dodge in letters to the court as a loving grandmother who should be spared prison because she's raising two grandchildren, whose parents are drug addicts.
Dodge spoke briefly.
"I didn't mean to hurt Kathy," Dodge told Harris. "She's a wonderful person. I did what I did, and it was wrong, and I need to pay for it, and that's why I'm here."
Carpenter said her goals were only getting Dodge to stop and setting a precedent.
Had Dodge accepted her offer to pay for mediation and reach a settlement, criminal charges could have been avoided. But Dodge and her attorney had refused.
"I didn't want 'Grandma Jean' to go to jail," Carpenter said. "That's not the point. … I'd just as soon that she was out there making a buck, paying me back."


Stephanie Rice can be reached at 360-735-4549 or
stephanie.rice@columbian.com
.