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Police halt trashing of accountant's files

The certified public accountant was urged to shred clients' private papers to prevent identity theft.

By YUXING ZHENG
Published September 24, 2005

LARGO - Identity thieves missed a potential treasure trove of personal information Thursday afternoon after Largo police stopped an accountant from tossing thousands of financial papers into a trash bin, Largo police Sgt. Andy Hill said.

At least six garbage cans packed with files containing clients' returned checks, W-2 forms, Social Security numbers, bank account numbers and other financial documents briefly sat untended near the accountant's offices in the Spectrum Technology Park near Remington College in the 8500 block of Ulmerton Road.

Two Remington College students called police at 12:55 p.m. after watching people load files into a commercial trash bin, Hill said. When an officer arrived, he saw two men head toward the bin with another garbage can full of papers.

Frederick C. Thacher and two friends were disposing of client files, Hill said. They cooperated with the police request to destroy the papers instead of tossing them. No arrests were made and no charges filed.

"We just asked him if he understood the potential for identity theft, and he just looked very, very shocked," Hill said. "He said he'd never done it before; he usually shredded it. He didn't know why he took them out to the garbage can."

Hill estimated the trash bin contained 800 to 2,000 files, most of them dating from 1999 to 2000.

The police report on the incident will be forwarded to the Internal Revenue Service and the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation, Hill said.

Thacher and Michael K. Newhouse, both certified public accountants, are in the process of separating their practice, Hill said. Neither man could be reached for comment Friday.

The offices were locked late Friday afternoon, and a message to the office's listed phone number was not returned.

Gary Marcus, a certified public accountant in Largo, said he's not aware of any written code of ethics regarding the disposal of accounting records, but said most accountants don't toss files into the waste bin.

"Years ago, people used to somewhat do that," Marcus said. "But I think with all of the identity theft in the last 10 years or so, we've always had our documents shredded."

Largo detectives receive six to eight identity theft cases each month, Hill said.

"I would have been under the impression that the certified public accountant would have been well aware of the amount of identity theft going on today and that that information is very sensitive and very, very private," Hill said.

Yuxing Zheng can be reached at 445-4163 or yzheng@sptimes.com

[Last modified September 24, 2005, 01:15:02]