Jocelyn "Bonnie" Kirsch gets 5 years for ID-theft scams

Jocelyn S. Kirsch - half of Philadelphia's infamous pair of identity-theft scammers known as "Bonnie and Clyde" - was sentenced yesterday to five years in prison by a judge who said her crimes were born of "greed and a desire to fuel a lavish lifestyle."

Kirsch, 23, had benefited from "the best that America can offer - good schools, an opportunity to grow up in a safe environment," said U.S. District Judge Eduardo C. Robreno. And yet she "visited harm on at least 50 victims," many of them friends and colleagues.

He ordered Kirsch to pay $100,000 in restitution and undergo mental-health treatment in prison. After her release, she is to be supervised by probation officials for five years.

Following more than two hours of debate between the attorneys about her mental state, Robreno decided to shave 10 months off the 70-to-81 months called for under sentencing guidelines. He had tried to balance all the issues in the case, he said, but still "was left to wonder - was the defendant mentally ill, or was she really self-indulgent? Was she a product of a profoundly dysfunctional family, or is she a hardened criminal?"

Kirsch, a former Drexel student who drew widespread media attention when glamorous photos of her, often in a bikini, were splashed over the Internet, looked more mousy than model-like as she stood meekly in court. She had no visible reaction to the sentence, and when led from the courtroom in handcuffs, she never once looked back toward her parents, who had sat somberly through the morning-long hearing.

Moments earlier, in a voice barely audible, she apologized for her actions. She and her then-boyfriend, Edward Anderton, had stolen identity information from friends, coworkers and neighbors and used it to get fake IDs, which they then used to get fraudulent credit cards. They stole more than $116,000 from their victims - and tried to steal about $122,000 more.

Kirsch also had expressed remorse in a letter to Robreno. She wrote that she and Anderton had convinced themselves that they were engaging in victimless crime.

"We assumed that personal credit would be restored quickly, that banks were insured and that no one would suffer," she wrote to the judge.

Kirsch and Anderton pleaded guilty earlier this year to charges of conspiracy, fraud and aggravated identity theft. Anderton, who graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in economics, is scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 14.

Yesterday's hearing focused largely on Kirsch's mental condition, as defense attorney Ronald Greenblatt and Assistant U.S. Attorney Louis D. Lappen debated five psychological and psychiatric reports that offered vivid details about her past.

At the age of 18, Kirsch had gotten breast implants during cosmetic surgery performed by her father, a plastic surgeon, according to several of the psychological reports.

Arrested four times for shoplifting, Kirsch acknowledged to one psychologist that she had engaged in retail theft as many as 50 to 100 other times without getting caught.

Greenblatt also highlighted her tumultuous relationship with her only sibling, a brother who is one year older. The two haven't spoken in years, he said.

"She has serious psychological problems," he told the judge.

While acknowledging she has "psychological issues," Lappen said such problems were not serious enough to result in a break in the length of her prison sentence.

"This was well thought out, premeditated and very serious criminal conduct," he told Robreno.

Referring to letters sent by Kirsch's mother, father and step-grandmother, Robreno said it was clear she had grown up in a family environment "full of stress and hostility" and that "neither her mother nor her father emerge as heroes in this case."

In the end, the judge said, the sentence punishes Kirsch and "protects the public."