The investigation into stolen mail last December has led to a Nashville woman being charged with Identity Theft, law enforcement officials said Thursday.
Jennifer Diane Haworth, 44, of a Meridian Street address in Nashville, was charged with 17 counts of Identity Theft on Tuesday. She was taken into custody by East Ridge police in Springfield, Tennessee, a suburb of Nashville. After her arrest, Haworth posted a $100,000 bond and was released from the Hamilton County Jail. She is scheduled to appear in East Ridge Municipal Court on April 10.
According to an affidavit of complaint, the ERPD’s investigation into mail theft reported on December 3, 2017 revealed that Haworth was engaging in an ongoing identity theft scheme. The report states that she was stealing mail on multiple occasions from one East Ridge couple and using their information to open multiple fraudulent credit and service accounts under the victims’ names and in the name of a business the victims once owned.
The report states that Haworth allegedly stole the victims’ mail sometimes by taking it from their mailbox. Other times, according to police, Haworth would fraudulently file to have the victims’ mail held at the post office where it would be picked up by suspects claiming to be the victims’ family members.
Jennifer Haworth
According to the report, police believe that Haworth would fraudulently sign up for the U.S. Postal Service’s Informed Delivery in the name of the victims. She would then receive e-mail images of what pieces of mail her victims were scheduled to receive on specific days. The report states that Haworth would then schedule mail thefts to intercept specific letters and packages and “facilitate her ongoing identity theft activity.”
According to the affidavit, Haworth made multiple purchases with credit obtained in the name of the victims.
The report states that the victimized couple began receiving notifications in the mail of applications for credit and bills for transactions on lines of credit. Police say that none of the credit lines were legitimate and were all opened by Haworth using the victims’ information.
