‘Indiana Wants Me’: Identity Mix-Up Sticks Woman with 12 Felonies, Denied Housing App

Everything seemed on track last month for Sandra Kay Rennenger-Mastrofski to be approved to buy and live in a manufactured home in an area mobile home park.

The 53-year-old West Des Moines woman’s credit checked out. But then the manager of the North American Mobile Home Park in Indianola, IA, offered a stunning explanation for denying her request.

“You were looking good,” the woman reportedly told Rennenger-Mastrofski, “except for your 12 felonies.”

According to a report on file at the West Des Moines Police Department, Rennenger-Mastrofski's Social Security number matched that of an inmate in the Indiana correctional system, where she reportedly was serving time for “everything from forgery to intentional injury of another person, as well as drug charges.”

Rennenger-Mastrofski's own record is squeaky clean, she said in an interview with Patch.

“Yep, I’m a good kid,” she quipped. “I’m as straight-laced as they come.”

How the mix-up occurred is a bit of a mystery. The Iowa woman said she’s never been to Indiana or to Ohio, where the other woman was transferred recently to begin serving what Rennenger-Mastrofski said authorities in Indiana told her could be a 10-year sentence.

“This isn’t her first rodeo,” she said, laughing.

Rennenger-Mastrofski said West Des Moines authorities told her the mix-up may have been the result of a clerical error at an Indiana courthouse and not because of criminal intent on the imprisoned woman’s part because she’s spent the past few years behind bars.

Rennenger-Mastrofski has maintained cheeky good humor throughout the ordeal.

“It’s not the end of the world,” she said. “I’ve had worse things happen to me. It’ll be OK.”

Those “worse things” include having her identity stolen and having both her personal and business accounts emptied in the past, and a debilitating automobile accident that left her disabled and forced her to sell Medically Yours, the business she founded, branded and operated for 11 years.

“I’ve pretty much got to live with it,” Rennenger-Mastrofski said. “Indiana said they’re not going to show me her records because I’m not a detective or a police officer. It probably could be rectified if I got a lawyer.”

Authorities in Iowa have vouched for her, her fingerprints are on file from a past job as a Polk County nurse and she has “a way to get past it and prove it’s not me,” she said.

“Some things in life you can’t do anything about,” she said. “You just kind of roll with the punches.”

Rennenger-Mastrofski was eventually cleared to move to the mobile home park in Indianola, but she turned it down when she found a home that better suited her.