Alleged ID Thieves Stole Financial Aid From NVCC: Prosecutors

ALEXANDRIA, VA -- A federal grand jury on Thursday charged two Louisiana men with stealing the identities of four people, including a soldier wounded in Afghanistan, to scam Northern Virginia Community College (NVCC) and four other colleges out of $67,000 in student aid.

Ernest Xavier Taylor Jr., 31, and Tracie Laverne Mixon, 34, both of Hammond, La., are charged with conspiracy, mail fraud, wire fraud, financial aid fraud and aggravated identity theft, according to prosecutors with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Last year, say prosecutors, Taylor and Mixon stole the identities of four different people to win federal student aid from NVCC, two community colleges in Colorado, one in Oregon, and Black Hills State University in South Dakota.

The identity theft victims included a U.S. Army soldier who "was recovering in a military hospital after suffering injuries while deployed ... in Afghanistan," the prosecutors said in a statement. The other three were in prison at the time their identities were used.

According to the charges, Taylor and Mixon used the names, dates of birth and Social Security numbers of the four individuals to apply for financial aid. But they also submitted their own home addresses, email addresses and phone numbers to ensure that inquiries from NVCC, the U.S. Department of Education and the other colleges would be directed to them, not to the identity theft victims.

Investigators recorded phone calls in which Taylor pretended to be each one of the four victims "when calling to check on the status of financial aid from NVCC," prosecutors said. The scam led NVCC and the other schools to offer about $67,000 in student aid "to the various identities used by Taylor Jr. and Mixon," they said.