Click here for updates on this story
Middletown, CT (WFSB) — A man is accused of trying to fraudulently use a Florida driver’s license to buy 19 iPhones and six Samsung tablets from a store in Middletown.
Police said they arrested 49-year-old Lasyah M. Palmer of Bronx, NY, on Saturday night.
They said they responded to the Verizon store on Washington Street around 6:15 p.m.
They were informed that a man was trying to buy the phones with a Florida operator’s license, something which Verizon employees knew to look out for thanks to an internal company memo.
Officers said they found Palmer sitting in a customer service booth at the front of the store.
A store employee showed police that the Verizon account connected to the license belonged to a different man. The employee also showed police the internal memo.
The memo included another fraudulent transaction that happened in Wallingford on Saturday. In that case, the suspect used a Massachusetts driver’s license.
Police detained Palmer, who refused to identify himself. They had to identify him through fingerprints.
They said Palmer had on him $400 in cash, a seven-page fraudulent IRS tax document for some phones, four SIM cards, a Missouri state driver’s license, the Florida state’s driver’s license, a couple of U.S. passports, a Chase Mastercard and a Bank of America Visa card. The only thing that had the suspect’s actual name on it was a New York State EBT card, according to police.
Palmer tried to tell police that he was actually a confidential informant for the New York City Police Department and he was trying to uncover information about people responsible for creating false identifications, like the ones he had been using.
However, Middletown police called the NYPD and it said it had no connection to Palmer.
Investigators eventually found that the suspect had a lengthy criminal history with New York State Police.
Palmer was charged with first-degree criminal attempt to commit larceny, first-degree identity theft, interfering with an officer, criminal impersonation, second-degree forgery and unlawful possession of a person ID access device.
He faced a judge in Middletown on Monday.
Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.
