Fugitive From Jersey Lived Under Assumed Identity in Delray Beach

By Thomas Francis Fri., Sep. 18 2009 at 5:07 PM

Categories: Crime, Palm Beach

Flickr: spinadelic

For those of you who thought you knew James Present, you didn't. You knew Ronald Hippolyte, the mastermind of an identity theft ring who was to serve a 4-and-a-half-year a prison sentence in New Jersey. He bolted in 2005 and has been living in Delray Beach as James Present since the long arm of the law plucked him from there in July.

From the Star-Ledger:

The 31-year-old Haitian citizen was first arrested in 2003 along with his live-in girlfriend, Marie Louissaint, who worked at Weichert Financial Services, a Morris Plains-based company and partner to Weichert Realtors.

At the time, Weichert Financial employed approximately 600 people, and was licensed to do business in more than 40 states.

At Hyppolite's instruction, Louissaint stole copies of Weichert's customer credit reports, which they used to hack into the firm's internal computer system and access clients' confidential financial information, authorities said.

He worked with four others to sell stolen credit reports or used them to buy between $120,000 and $200,000 of computers, Palm Pilots and other merchandise, authorities said.

Here's the DOJ release from that case. How did Jersey officials catch up with Hyppolite? The article doesn't say exactly, but it's a good bet that it's because his alter ego was being investigated by local law enforcement for selling fake travel documents.