February 3, 2005

Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles
100 N. Senate Ave.
Room N405
Indianapolis, IN 46204

Sir/Madam,

I am writing this letter to request that the Bureau of Motor Vehicles (BMV) disassociate my Social Security Number (SSN) from any and all files on record in the BMV and remove any and all records showing that I ever had a driver's license or other form of identification in the state of Indiana. My social security number is XXX-XX-XXXX.

From the information that I have been able to gather, there have been at least two people and possible three people who used my SSN to obtain state ID cards from your office. I can certainly understand how this might happen the first time, but allowing this to happen more than once demonstrates gross negligence on the part of the BMV.

I have never lived in Indiana nor have I ever applied for any kind of driver's license or other form of identification from the state of Indiana. I have lived in only two states in my entire life, those being Kentucky where I was born and North Carolina where I have now resided since 1999.

I was initially alerted to this fraud problem when Sears called me November 30, 2001. I immediately contacted the various credit reporting agencies and the Noblesville police where the incident took place. Much to my dismay, the Noblesville police refused to do anything and told me to call the FBI. I called the FBI and they said to call the Secret Service. I called the Secret Service and they said to call the Indiana State Police, so I called the Indiana State Police. It's really pathetic, but I was finally able to reach a very nice inspector there named Amy Johnson (Tel: +1 317 233 6049) who took up my case and worked to track down the criminal.

I exchanged phone calls and voicemail with Ms. Johnson from December 2001 to November 2002. During that time, she made the arrest of one Richard R. Brown. The police record is 52-35359. From my own investigation, he appears to have been born September 20, 1971 and has brown eyes and is 6' tall. His physical description does not match mine, since I'm 5'8" and have blue eyes.

From what I have been able to ascertain through my communication with various agencies, Mr. Brown obtained a valid birth certificate from the state of Kentucky. This is easy to do, since Kentucky requires no ID in order to get a birth certificate. The BMV should take note of that fact when giving people an ID based on a piece of paper that required no ID.

I was able to clean up my credit report. Mr. Brown pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 18 months in jail on or about November 14, 2002, but apparently the BMV failed to do its job and clean up the errors that were on file. Ms. Johnson said that BMV was aware of this ID theft issue related to my SSN, so I really see no excuse.

Just to add insult to injury, when I went back to this 3-year-old case and reviewed my own records, I noted that I had recorded the fact that I called the Indiana BMV myself on January 2, 2002 and left a message on the voicemail system. I was never called back. It's unfortunate that my warning of identity theft was ignored, as I'm now being made to suffer the consequences of the results of ignoring my warning.

When I tried to renew my driver's license in North Carolina on February 1, 2005, I was told that Indiana had a "do not issue" request in some "national driver registry". The associated number was IN 2350902282. When I investigated this further, I discovered that this is the same Mr. Richard R. Brown that was arrested and jailed. I find this ridiculously insane that the BMV could not also make this determination and, instead, insisted on keeping this false information in its databases and pushing that false information out to the entire country.

As far as I am concerned, the Indiana BMV has proven to be lazy and quite incompetent. This whole problem is due to errors on the part of the BMV, not me. My driving ability is being impaired by your department and at no fault of my own, though I am being made to pay the mistakes of the BMV. Your statements to my DMV through the national driver registry are nothing less than false and therefore libelous.

As stated in the opening, I want my record cleaned and all improper references to my name, likeness, and other identifying information purged from your systems. The fact that the BMV made serious mistakes and perpetuate the results of those mistakes, even in the face of a guilty plea from the responsible party, is no reason to continue with this line of behavior and to put undue stress and burden on my shoulders.