Tuesday, March 16, 2004
Darryl Hunt, freed in December after 18 years in prison for a murder he did not commit, learned this week that he is a victim of identity theft.
Someone used Hunt's name and Social Security number to pile up more than $5,200 in debt. A warrant also charges the person using Hunt's name with three counts of writing worthless checks.
"It's mind-boggling to me for someone to steal my identity," Hunt said. "I can't figure it out, unless they just felt I was never getting out so it didn't matter."
The impostor also obtained an identification card in April 2002 from the N.C. Division of Motor Vehicles using Hunt's full name - Darryl Eugene Hunt - and birth date. The card shows a black man with a broad forehead and a full head of dark curls, and lists an address on East 17th Street in Winston-Salem. At the time, Hunt lived in a cell at the Piedmont Correctional Institution in Salisbury.
The Winston-Salem Police Department's fraud unit is investigating the case, Assistant Police Chief Ronnie Abernathy said.
"We do not have a suspect identified at this time, but it is an active investigation," Abernathy said.
Inspector Nelson Rhodes of the motor-vehicles division said his office's license and theft bureau is also looking into the case.
"We'll prosecute him when we catch him," said Tom Keith, the Forsyth County district attorney. "That's the wrong name to pick. You'd think everyone in Winston-Salem would know who Darryl Hunt is."
Hunt spent more than 18 years in prison for the 1984 murder of Deborah Sykes. He was released from prison on Christmas Eve after DNA evidence led to the arrest of a new suspect in the case. The new suspect, Willard E. Brown, is awaiting trial on charges of murder, rape, kidnapping and robbery.
When Hunt was exonerated at a hearing last month, authorities called his arrest a case of mistaken identity.
"It's the ultimate irony that a victim of mistaken identity is now a victim of identity theft," said Mark Rabil, Hunt's attorney. "Darryl's trying to start his life all over again, and then to encounter this is absurd."
Hunt has spent the last three months settling into family life, with his wife and three stepchildren. He has been working with a friend who remodels old houses and is taking a class at Winston-Salem State University.
When his wife filed for her 2003 tax refund, she added Hunt's name and Social Security number to the tax return.
On Monday, Hunt found out about the identity theft in a letter from a bank about a quick tax refund that his wife had applied for. The bank had her application, the letter said, but a bank in Santa Barbara, Calif., had filed a $1,400 claim against any refund, apparently because of a loan, now unpaid, obtained in 2002 by the Hunt impostor.
Hunt called the California bank and obtained the name of a tax preparer in Winston-Salem that the impostor had used. The tax preparer showed Hunt a file on the false Hunt, including the identification card in his name.
Hunt said he then checked his credit report and found the remaining debts in his name - all on accounts opened while he was in prison.
The N.C. Attorney General's Office reported 286,000 cases of identity theft in the state last year. A spokesman for the agency said she knew of no other reports of ID theft from prison inmates.
The agency's Web site provides instructions on how to clear up the havoc that identity theft causes. Victims must obtain affidavits to file with banks and other creditors. Hunt spent last week working on his case.
Rabil also checked statewide criminal records and found three warrants for Hunt's arrest in Guilford County, all for writing bad checks in February and July 2002 - including one for $181 to Wal-Mart and two checks adding up to $215 to The Fresh Market.
Hunt is waiting for Gov. Mike Easley to decide whether to give him a pardon, which would entitle him to $20,000 a year for every year that he was wrongfully imprisoned - or about $360,000. Rabil said he hopes that the debts wrongfully chalked up against Hunt will be cleared up so that Hunt will be free of any claims.
• Phoebe Zerwick can be reached at 727-7291 or at pzerwick@wsjournal.com