Former Live-In Aide Convicted Of Stealing $73K From Scarsdale Couple

A former live-in health care aide for a Scarsdale couple has been convicted of stealing their identities to open credit cards in their names and obtaining more than $70,000 used to buy luxury goods, airline tickets, furniture and to make a down payment on a Porsche.

Isabel Wilson has been convicted after a one-week trial before U.S. District Court Judge Vincent L. Briccetti in federal court in White Plains. She was found guilty of access device fraud, aggravated identity theft, use of a passport obtained by fraud, use of a Social Security number assigned on the basis of false information making false statements to a federal officer and falsely claiming to be a U.S. citizen.

U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara said Wilson faces up to 50 years in prison and a $250,000 fine when she is sentenced on Oct. 31. Wilson, a Jackson, NJ, resident, is free pending her sentencing.

Wilson was convicted by a jury after about two hours of deliberation. Her trial revealed a complicated scheme to steal from the couple she was hired to care for in 2005.

The elderly man and woman suffer from dementia. The theft was initially uncovered when unexplainable credit card statements reached family members.

The trial showed that Wilson used the couple's names, birth dates and Social Security numbers to open seven credit cards in their names. Those cards were used for a spending spree for Wilson and her husband, prosecutors said.

The scheme was hidden by having some of the credit card statements sent to a post office box that Wilson had obtained near the couple's Scarsdale home.

The federal investigation found that Wilson used a fraudulently obtained U.S. passort as identification when she obtained the post office box. Wilson, a citizen of Liberia, stole the identity of a Rhode Island woman to obtain a passport.

Investigators found that before getting the passport Wilson went to the Queens County Court to change the name of the Rhode Island woman to her own name.

Prosecutors said Wilson lied to federal officials investigating the case:

- She lied about her identity to Secret Service agents.

- She lied to a pretrial services officer and a deputy U.S. marshal about her place of birth, claiming she was born in North Carolina and was a U.S. citizen.

- She provided a deputy U.S. marshal with a Social Security number that Wilson had obtained from the Social Security Administration by falsifying a Social Security Card application by stating she was born in North Carolina.

The investigaiton involved the Secret Service, U.S. Marshal, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the U.S. Department of State, the Social Security Administration and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.