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Little by little, Eric Whiting clears up his stolen identity.
By WILLIAM R. LEVESQUE
© St. Petersburg Times, published July 7, 2001
LARGO -- Eric Whiting doesn't leave his Largo home without the letter from the Pinellas Sheriff's Office and the business card from a sheriff's lieutenant.
The letter explains that he has no criminal record.
And on the back of Lt. Scott Stiner's business card, Stiner has written, "Eric Whiting is a victim of ID theft. Suspect is Marvin Walton."
It's Whiting's "get-out-of-jail-free" card.
But for Whiting, it wasn't enough to assure peace of mind. On Friday, he asked a judge to expunge his name from a national crime computer that lists his name as an alias for Walton, a cousin of Whiting's with a long criminal record.
Pinellas County Judge Michael Andrews agreed, ordering the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to delete the alias.
Numerous times in the last decade, Walton, 30, has presented Whiting's name and Social Security number when being arrested on a variety of charges, including child abuse, grand theft and drug charges.
"Every day, every night it worries you," Whiting said afterward. "If I get into a car and go for a drive, I look over my shoulder wondering if I'm going to be stopped and arrested for something Marvin did."
So far, that hasn't happened.
Whiting, 33, said the worst that has happened was two years ago when his employer, Morton Plant Rehabilitation, where he worked as a housekeeper, ran a background check on him and found a child abuse charge.
He was transferred to work in the kitchen until he proved that the charge belonged to Walton.
In November, Pinellas elections officials refused to renew Whiting's voter registration because records listed him as a felon. Whiting cleared that up, too.
And in 1984, he said Dunedin police confiscated his driver's license after a traffic stop because they mistakenly believed that it was suspended. Actually, it was Walton's license that had been suspended. Whiting said he went months without a license before resolving the problem.
The inability to vote finally drove Whiting to fix the problem, said Lynn Hanshaw, an attorney with Gulfcoast Legal Services representing Whiting.
"Unfortunately, identity theft has become more common," said Sgt. Greg Tita, a spokesman for Pinellas Sheriff Everett Rice.
Originally, when anyone in Pinellas typed Whiting's name into a criminal court's computer, many of Walton's charges appeared. So it looked as though Whiting had been charged with those crimes.
Judge Andrews ordered that problem to be fixed earlier this year.
On local police computers, not available to the public, Whiting's name still comes up as an alias under Walton's name. That's necessary in order to protect the public, since a felon is using Whiting's name as an alias, said Tita.
"When Mr. Whiting is local, he's got the local letters to protect him," said Hanshaw. "It's when he's traveling out of the area that he's most at risk."
Whiting said he lived with Walton more than a decade ago for about a month and suspects his cousin stole his wallet, obtaining his Social Security Number and date of birth.
He has not had contact with Walton, who could not be reached for comment, in many years.
"Let's hope Mr. Walton comes up with another alias," said Hanshaw.