3 ms·

Why was the law involved in any of this in the first place? Had Woods not been charged with identity theft in the first place Keirans' crime would have been vi

• pavel_lishin 2y ago
  > On Friday, Judge Williams said that Mr. Keirans’s motive was clear: He had adopted the false identity, the judge said, to escape responsibility from crimes he was accused of when he was young. Mr. Keirans had run away from home as a teenager, stolen a car and skipped court after an arrest, his plea agreement says. Oh, sure - misrepresenting who you are to businesses, law enforcement, potential partners. Regular victimless stuff.
  • nullc 2y ago
    In the US you can just adopt a new name, so long as you're not doing it for a fraudulent purpose (and obviously not by stealing someone elses identity). In this case, sure, he was ... _in the 1970s_. The initial name change was a crime but it was not a particularly significant one and it was a very long time ago. It appears that the ongoing modern use was completely harmless except for the fact that the real owner of the name was brought into the legal system over it. But why did that happen? You don't have to agree with my view on the identity theft to recognize that the question of why the real Mr. Woods was put under the thumb of the law is an interesting and relevant one.