Federal sweep nabs Guilford man in identity theft, credit card scams

BANGOR – As part of a nationwide sweep by federal officials, a man renting a house in Guilford has been charged with identity theft and with two counts of interstate use of stolen credit cards.

Michael David McMackin, 39, originally from Tewksbury, Mass., has been charged in a criminal complaint filed at U.S. District Court in Bangor.

McMackin is one of 134 individuals around the country who were named in criminal activity. Attorney General John Ashcroft, in an afternoon press conference, announced the results of the sweep, stating that “identity theft is often an essential component of many criminal activities, from bank and credit card fraud to – as we learned last fall in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks – international terrorism.” Ashcroft added that the types of criminal violations “that underlie identity theft in these cases run the gamut from traditional white-collar crime to murder.”

Court records reveal that on Jan. 10, McMackin rented a home in Guilford from a local realtor. The homeowner, who had left Maine for a lengthy trip, had asked the realtor to gather his mail and to pay his bills. On Feb. 8, when the realtor retrieved the homeowner’s mail from his Guilford post office box, he found a letter from a credit-card company expressing concern over recent charges. An ensuing investigation by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service found that McMackin had charged up to $6,000 on two of the absent homeowner’s credit cards.

Court records allege McMackin first attempted to gain access to the homeowner’s Guilford post office box but was refused by the postmaster, and he then attempted to obtain a key to the post office box from the real estate agency, where he also was refused. The documents further allege that McMackin opened a new post office box in Kenduskeag using the homeowner’s name and reported the new billing address to the homeowner’s two credit card companies, supplying proper credit card numbers and other identifying information which he had found at the homeowner’s residence.

If convicted, McMackin faces a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison on the charge of identity theft and a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison on the two counts of interstate use of stolen credit cards.

McMackin was arrested with Barbara Savoie, 52, on March 11 and the pair were charged with state crimes. The two remain at the Piscataquis County Jail after failing to make bail. It was unclear Thursday whether Savoie will be named in a federal complaint.

Identity theft is one of the fastest-growing crimes in the United States. The Federal Trade Commission, which maintains a national database of consumer complaints known as Consumer Sentinel, recently reported that in 2001 identity theft accounted for 42 percent of all complaints that it received, more than any other category of consumer fraud.

Maine’s U.S. attorney, Paula Silsby, advised that the complaint is merely an accusation, and that the defendant is presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty. Silsby, in a release, praised the McMackin investigation, which was conducted by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the Piscataquis County Sheriff’s Department.