Help
available for identity theft victims
I
heard the other day that 10 million Americans have been victims of identity theft.
That's not news to me -- I had my identity stolen
two years ago -- or Georgia Baxter Pope, a 1969
Belvidere
High School graduate who will be the guest speaker at Monday's meeting of the
Asa Cotrell Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.
Pope
is a federal victims witness coordinator for the U.S. Department of Justice in
Los Angeles.
"I assist victims of federal crime,"
she said. "When any crime is prosecuted by the attorney's office in this
district, we find recourse and help the victims as much as we can.
"It
can be for tellers from bank robberies or other financial institutions. We help
victims of telemarketing frauds, human traffic victims, some domestic violence
and we help identity theft victims."
POPE SAID
IDENTITY THEFT is one of the fastest-growing crimes in the United States.
"It
takes five minutes for me to be you," she said.
Pope
will have information and resources on topics such as telemarketing fraud and
identity theft in her presentation, which starts around 7:30 p.m. at The Huddle
Restaurant in Belvidere.
She was working as a
victims advocate for the postal inspector when she transferred to the U.S. attorney's
office in 2000.
"We help if they need money,
shelter, whatever," she said. "They have the right to attend the court
hearing, and we notify them about what's going on."
Pope
said she also teaches federal law enforcement officers, including the FBI, Postal
Service and DEA, what can be done to best help victims of federal crime.
After
graduating from Belvidere, Pope attended college and eventually worked for a Rockford
lawyer.
"I got married and moved to Chicago,
then Milwaukee and had quite a few jobs," she said. "We had children,
raised them, then in 1991 I started working for the federal government in Phoenix."
SHE HAS MET WITH President Bush and U.S. Attorney
General John Ashcroft, and her contributions to the public good have had significant
impact.
"If it's a federal crime, committed
on federal property, we are there to assist the victims," she said. "We
worked with families of 9-11 out here in California.
"We've
had quite a few conversations with them, whether it was helping them get counseling
or making decisions about the 9-11 victims fund."
She
recently helped the mother of an Israeli man who was murdered in Nevada.
When
she said that her office helps victims of human trafficking, I mentioned that
that was logical because she worked in California.
"You'd
be surprised," she said. "It's all over the country."
Mike
Doyle's column on people, places and things in Boone County runs Thursdays in
the Rockford Register Star.
Courtesy of:http://www.rrstar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040916/OPINION0106/409160321/1025/NEWS