NEW ORLEANS -- The woman who used fake identities to land high-paying jobs after faking her death in 1999 was sentenced to 10 years in jail.
Cindy White, 41, was given the maximum sentence after stealing another woman’s identity from social media and using it to get an executive-level job, according to a release from District Attorney Warren Montgomery’s office. This case of identity theft was the most recent in a string going back multiple decades, according to the DA’s office.
Investigators say White was hired as a human resources manager at a Diversified Foods & Seasonings' Covington office with a $95,000 salary while using another woman’s identity in Sept. 2015. She was promoted five months later to senior human resources director with a $105,000 salary.
“This person stole the victim’s hard work and used it to get a six-figure salary and benefits to boot,” Assistant District Attorney Casey Dieck said.
Company officials became suspicious after she had trouble performing duties and delegating tasks given to her, prosecutors say. Authorities later discovered that White had copied her resume from a LinkedIn account of someone with a similar name.
“She also had obtained the woman’s Social Security number and driver’s license number through an unspecified site online,” the district attorney’s office said.
Using White’s real social security number, investigators learned that she was a former Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office employee who was fired in Feb. 1997 for theft, forgery and malfeasance in office. White was accused of assuming a co-worker’s identity, emptying their bank account before being identified in security photos.
White pleaded guilty to two counts of forgery in Sept. 1997 and was placed on probation. The probation was terminated in 1999 because the court received information that she had died.
White had also pleaded guilty to attempted theft of goods in Jefferson Parish in Dec. 1998.
Prosecutors say White collected $56,209 in salary between Oct. 9 2015 and May 6, 2016. She told investigators that she fraudulently used another woman’s social security number and experience to get the job. White’s defense attorney argued that she had earned the salary.
