Sometimes the consequences of a stolen identity exceed anything you could have imagined.<\/p>\n
Matthew David Keirans, a 58-year-old former hospital employee has pleaded guilty to assuming another man\u2019s identity since 1988. He was convicted of one count of making a false statement to a National Credit Union Administration insured institution and one count of aggravated identity theft.<\/p>\n
The man whose identity he assumed\u2014William Donald Woods\u2014and Keirans worked together in 1988 at a hot dog cart in Albuquerque.<\/p>\n
Keirans was wanted for theft, so he used Woods\u2019 identity \u201cin every aspect of his life,\u201d including obtaining employment, insurance and official documents, and even paying taxes under Wood’s name, according to a plea agreement signed by Keirans. He even fathered a child, whose last name is Woods.<\/p>\n
In 1990, Keirans obtained a fraudulent Colorado identification card with Woods\u2019 name and birthday. He used the ID to get a job at a fast-food restaurant and to get a Colorado bank account. He bought a car for $600 in 1991, using Wood\u2019s name, with two $300 checks that bounced.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t the first time Keirans had committed car theft. When he was 16, he stole a car after running away from his adoptive parents\u2019 home in San Francisco.<\/p>\n
In 2012, Keirans fraudulently acquired a copy of Woods\u2019 birth certificate from the state of Kentucky using information he found about Woods\u2019 family on Ancestry.com.<\/p>\n
Under the assumed identity, Keirans also worked as a systems architect for the University of Iowa Hospital where he was fired for misconduct related to the identity theft investigation.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the real William Woods was homeless and living in Los Angeles, when he discovered that someone was using his credit and had accumulated a lot of debt. Woods didn\u2019t want to pay the debt and so went after the account numbers for any accounts he had open so he could close them. He handed a bank employee his real Social Security card and an authentic California Identification card, which matched the information the bank had on file. But because there was a large amount of money in the accounts, the bank employee asked Woods a series of security questions that he was unable to answer.<\/p>\n
At that point, the bank employee called Keirans, whose phone number was associated with the accounts. He was able to answer the security questions correctly and stated that no one in California should have access to the accounts.<\/p>\n
So, the bank employee called the police and after an investigation, the real Woods was arrested and charged with identity theft and false impersonation, under a misspelling of Keirans\u2019 name: Matthew Kierans.<\/p>\n
Because Woods refused to give up his own identity, a judge ruled in February 2020 that he was not mentally competent to stand trial and he was sent to a mental hospital in California, where he received psychotropic medication and other mental health treatment.<\/p>\n
For legal reasons, Woods pleaded no contest to the identity theft charges\u2014meaning he accepted the conviction but did not admit guilt\u2014and was sentenced to two years imprisonment with credit for the two years he already served in the county jail and the hospital and was released.<\/p>\n
But he didn’t give up his fight for his identity even though the judge ordered him to stop using the name William Woods. He attempted to regain his identity by filing customer disputes with financial organizations to clear his credit report.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t until a police detective tested Woods’ biological father\u2019s DNA against Woods\u2019 DNA. Both men had the same birth certificate with the father\u2019s name on it. The DNA test proved Woods was the man\u2019s son. During a follow-up interview Keirans made a mistake and eventually confessed to the prolonged identity theft, according to court documents.<\/p>\n
Keirans was indicted on five counts of making a false statement to a National Credit Union Administration insured institution and two counts of aggravated identity theft. He pleaded guilty to one count of each charge, and the other counts were dropped.<\/p>\n
A sentence ruling has not yet been scheduled. Keirans is currently in the custody of the US Marshals Service, according to a news release about his plea.<\/p>\n
We don’t just report on threats – we help safeguard your entire digital identit<\/strong>y<\/p>\n Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. Protect your\u2014and your family’s\u2014personal information by using identity protection<\/a>.<\/p>\n