Georgetown police: Georgia woman arrested on identity thief charges after trying to purchase car
GEORGETOWN, Ky. (WKYT) - A woman is facing charges in Scott County, accused of trying to make a large purchase using another person’s identity.
Georgetown Police say the suspect is not from Georgetown. She’s not even from Kentucky. She booked a one-way ticket here from Georgia, and if she was successful, police believe she would’ve taken the interstate to a clean getaway.
“Coming to a different state, it’s harder to track down an individual if the dealership was to go ahead and award that vehicle and didn’t set off any anomalies,” said Georgetown Assistant Chief of Police Josh Nash.
A’Kerria Wilborn of Georgia faces four counts related to identity theft in Scott County after attempting to buy a car from the Dan Cummins Chevrolet Buick dealership in Georgetown.
“Their employees, they did a great job of kind of picking up on clues that didn’t really sit right with them,” said Assistant Chief Nash.
Dan Cummins Auto Group Executive Manager Jessica Gilbert says there were some red flags when interacting with Wilborn, including switching from looking at sports cars to pickup trucks.
“Usually, if you’re looking at a sports car, you’re not also looking at a pickup truck,” said Gilbert. “Some things started to not add up, and we got concerned about some of the information.”
Leading workers to dig deeper.
“So we have some tools and different things and processes in place to protect our consumers. And fortunately, our team is really diligent, and they identified some of these things that were going on and just told the customer that we needed to do some additional verifications.”
The diligence that Assistant Chief Nash says was crucial to leading to Wilborn’s arrest.
“Without the community’s help, and without their help, we wouldn’t have been able to find this lady,” said Assistant Chief Nash. “She probably would’ve been gone, hit the interstate and we wouldn’t have seen her.”
While this case may be unique for Georgetown police, Gilbert tells me that instances of identity theft being used for car purchases are becoming more and more common as time goes on.
Wilborn pleaded not guilty in her arraignment this afternoon. Her bail was set at $25,000. Her next court appearance is set for next Tuesday.
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