Mom accused of stealing identity of her daughter

A Springfield woman denied charges Tuesday she stole her daughter's identity and damaged her credit.

http://www.rutlandherald.com/article/20100410/NEWS02/4100359                     # # # # Mom accused of stealing identity of her daughter  •  Rutland Herald  •  By Josh O'Gorman STAFF WRITER - Published: April 10, 2010  •  WHITE RIVER JUNCTION — A Springfield woman denied charges Tuesday she stole her daughter's identity and damaged her credit.  •  Bridget Ritchie, 35, pleaded innocent in White River Junction District Court to a felony charge of identity theft as well as a misdemeanor charge of theft of services.  •  According to affidavits filed with the court, in August, Ritchie's daughter, Natausha Ritchie, 19, contacted Springfield Police to make a fraud complaint.  •  Natausha Ritchie told police she had just checked her credit because she was contemplating buying a house and she found an unpaid bill for $145 from Adelphia Cable from 2004, affidavits state.  •  Natausha Ritchie learned the address on the Adelphia account, which had been sent to collections years earlier, was her mother's Bellows Falls address in 2004, police said.  •  Natausha Ritchie told police she had never opened an account with Adelphia, and police noted she would have been 14 years old when the account was opened, records state.  •  Natausha Ritchie learned she also had two accounts open with Comcast Cable: one for her address and another opened in May 2009 at her mother's Springfield address, records state. Ritchie then contacted Central Vermont Public Service and learned she had an account open, again for her mother's residence, according to affidavits. Both bills had outstanding balances, records state.  •  Natausha Ritchie confronted her mother about the bills, according to a sworn affidavit she gave police.  •  "I had called my mother to say something about this to her and when I did she acted like it was no big deal and I had asked her what she was going to do about it and if she was going to pay the back bills that she owed for the cable and electric," Natausha Ritchie wrote. "She said she would call me back after talking with her boyfriend about it but she never called me back."  •  Police repeatedly tried to interview Bridget Ritchie but were unable to do so, but Bridget Ritchie did leave a voice mail for the investigating officer saying her daughter had given her permission to use her daughter's Social Security number to open the accounts, records state. Natausha Ritchie told police she never gave her mother permission to use her personal information to open up utility accounts, according to court records.  •  Bridget Ritchie has a criminal history that stretches back 19 years to when she was 16 years old, beginning with a disorderly conduct conviction in 1991. In addition to convictions for drunken driving, marijuana possession and assaulting a police officer, she also has two separate convictions in 2006 for passing bad checks.  •  Ritchie is free on conditions she not harass her daughter and that she close any accounts she has opened with another person's information.  •