At the time, Coast Capital CEO Robert Genisman told The Independent that the company wasn't certain as to how Zorn acquired the computer and was conducting its own investigation. Michael Hebert, Coast Capital's attorney, now says that the company has concluded its investigation, but while there are new details, questions remain.
In a letter sent to 409 of its customers and dated July 7, Genisman wrote: "Coast Capital Mortgage has now recovered all information from the computer bought by an individual at Goodwill." Although Genisman states that the company and the courts are "totally confident that no sensitive information has been released to the public," he tells customers how they can put a fraud alert on their credit reports. He also states that extortion charges against Zorn are still under investigation. Calls placed to the district attorney's office went unreturned as of press time.
In May, 15th Judicial District Judge Thomas Duplantier ordered Zorn to return all information about the computer to the courts, including a list of names he had retained from the computer, after he had voluntarily turned over the computer to the district attorney's office. Hebert says Coast Capital has since analyzed the contents of the hard drive and filed the information under seal with the court.
Hebert contends that there were 409 customers' information on the hard drive and that "the vast majority" of the information for each customer was a name, social security number and the name of the loan officer that each customer had initially contacted at Coast Capital. (Zorn alleges that there are 764 names of individuals on the computer, along with other types of information ' including loan applications, bank account numbers, credit reports and addresses). Hebert would not disclose what other types of personal financial information were found on the computer.
In May, Genisman told The Independent that although the company was still investigating the matter, Coast Capital believed the computer wasn't a personal computer. "It was personally owned by one of our employees who used it for the purpose of operating as a loan agent in the office, and that was it."
Now that the company has concluded its own investigation, attorney Hebert offers another explanation for the use of the computer. "The employee had some customer information on a computer that she used to do some company business at home," he says. "She thought that information was no longer on the computer. It had long since been inactive and not functional. She sold the computer at a garage sale. The person who bought the computer from her at the garage sale could not start it, so that person donated the computer to Goodwill, at which time Zorn purchased it, installed a power supply in the computer, and booted it up."
Despite his claim that the Coast Capital employee had taken the computer home to conduct company business, Hebert also says the machine did not work when she got it home. "It had sat at her house inoperable for over a year and was never connected to the Internet while it was there," he says.
To address the breach of security at Coast Capital, Hebert says that "appropriate internal action has been taken." He would not elaborate on what action has been taken, nor would he identify the employee, citing a need to protect the employee's privacy.
Zorn says he is unaware of the status of any impending charges against him. He still has not retained an attorney.
If you suspect that your identity is being used to commit fraud, you can have a "fraud alert" placed on your credit information. For more information on identity theft and fraud alerts, visit these Web sites:
Federal Trade Commission's Web site on identity theft
www.consumer.gov/idtheft
U.S. Department of Justice
www.usdoj.gov/criminal/fraud/idtheft.html
Fight Identity Theft
www.fightidentitytheft.com
Identity Theft Resource Center
www.idtheftcenter.org
Privacy Rights Clearinghouse
www.privacyrights.org/identity.htm
MAY 17 Here's a column from James Gill, this time in the Advocate. Gill, who has jumped ship from the Picayune, writes about the absurdity of dueling polls in this post. The numbers are so wildly different, it is obvious that both sides are "cooking the books," he writes. In particular, he looks at Sen. Mary Landrieu, and how her recent actions in DC have been received by those polled. Gill's acerbic, amusing prose is a welcome addition to a paper so conservative as to be occasionally lacking in personality.
MAY 17 Blogger Tom Aswell continues delivering bombshells about the state education department and Gov. Jindal's education "reform" efforts. In this post, he reports that students in the Shreveport area have been signed up for a charter school without their knowledge or consent. Most interesting to Aswell is how this Texas-based charter (with ties to GOP types) got the personal student information it has, if the students didn't give it.
MAY 17 This post by JR Ball in the Baton Rouge Business Report is an interesting tongue-in-cheek look at recent Baton Rouge economic development efforts. Among the items he examines is the idea that gaining a Costco makes BR a "world-class city." (Really? All you need is a different brand of Sam's? MK!) This effort, and other recent ones, are all built on the taxpayer's back, with tax zones, tax incentives and tax rebates, Ball writes.
MAY 17 Blogger CB Forgotston is critical of the legislature's reliance on a revenue-estimating committee's decision to include projected tax amnesty income in this year's forecast. That's a problem, CB posts, because the deadline for these people to pay their taxes is June 30, 2014. So when do you think these people who haven't paid taxes in years are going to pay their taxes? Surely not before June 30, and that means the money won't be there for this year's budget, he argues.
MAY 17 Here's an interesting blog out of California by a Hollywood writer, attorney and academic named Brian Alan Lane. He blogs about higher ed, and was a whistle-blower in a scandal over false credentials. In this post, he takes aim at LSU's new top dog, King Alexander. It's convoluted and a little confusing, but it sure makes Alexander a lot more interesting than he was yesterday.
MAY 17 Blogger Robert Mann writes about the LSU Board's refusal to allow Dr. Fred Cerise to testify before the legislature about Gov. Jindal's plan to close down all the state's charity hospitals and dump the poor on the private system. It's hard to imagine anyone more qualified than Cerise to testify about that, so why would anyone try to prevent him doing so? Mann thinks it is because the powers that be aren't interested in hearing any truth about the plan.
MAY 17 This post on the Louisiana Sinkhole Bugle, a blog that notes developments in the Bayou Corne and Jefferson Island salt domes, talks about a proposed expansion of the salt dome storage under Lake Peigneur in Iberia Parish. Residents are working against it for several reasons, including two biggies: the sinkhole disaster in Bayou Corne and the continuing, unexplained bubbling on the surface of the Lake.
MAY 17 NOLA police arrested more people Thursday accused of either being involved in the Mother's Day shooting or hiding the suspect afterward, this Gambit story reports. The NOLA police chief said he suspects the whole thing was gang-related and throws out a challenge to the gangs: he's got informants now, he says, and he knows a lot more than the gangs want him to know. The people who live in the neighborhoods terrorized by gangs are ready to talk, he says.
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