Yeah, yeah, yeah … innocent till proven guilty … jury of his peers … I know, I know, but, really, how much nerve does it take to plead not guilty when the evidence is so not in a guy’s favor?
Miguel Bell, 29, is accused of leading a ring of 29 ID thieves who stole $1.3 million from their victims’ bank accounts. The Philadelphia man pleaded not guilty yesterday to charges of conspiracy, bank fraud and aggravated identity theft.
According to the current charges against him, Bell and his co-conspirators stole the names, birth dates, Social Security numbers and bank account numbers of 34 account holders at Citizens, Wachovia, Sun Trust, Sovereign, M & T, Commerce (now RD Bank) and PNC banks.
The accused criminals then produced bogus identification so check runners could pose as the bank customers and deposit bogus checks then withdraw the funds fraudulently.
Maybe he’s guilty, and maybe he isn’t, but he has a lot stacked against him:
• Three of his girlfriends said Bell got them involved in the crimes and that they provided him with victims’ personal and bank account information between September 2005 and November 2008.
• Bell got in a car wreck in June 2006. A Philadelphia police officer found fake driver’s licenses, credit cards and checks, notes with identifying information of five people, a map to a Citizens Bank in Vermont.
• A fraudulent document submitted in April 2007 by a check runner to a Citizens Bank in Delaware had Bell’s fingerprints on it.
• Since 1999, Bell has pleaded guilty to unrelated charges of forgery, receiving stolen property, criminal conspiracy, tampering with public information and DUI.
Maybe he’s guilty, and maybe he isn’t. I’m just saying …
One Comment
I rad this article first. I had to save it so I continously go back and read things I may have skimmed.