Thieves use stolen driver's license years later, causing frustration for LA man

When you lose your credit card or have your wallet stolen, the experts say to cancel or pause your credit cards and to set alerts with all the major credit reporting bureaus. Jonathan Norton of Los Angeles did exactly that when he had his wallet stolen, but it wasn't enough to keep multiple people from using his identity.

Norton is a drummer, currently touring with Lucinda Williams. In 2020, Norton's wallet was stolen out of his car. When he found out, he canceled his credit cards and replaced his driver's license, but the original was still out there. Several years later, Norton started having issues. It all started with a traffic ticket showing up in his mailbox.

"He presented my driver's license at the traffic stop for a blown out headlight in September 2022. I

It didn't take much to prove the man captured on the officer's body camera was not, in fact, Norton.

"So the officer who;'s handling this traffic thing said, sent me a picture back of you, so I take a selfie send it to him and he goes, ‘Holy crap.’"

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After that, Norton said he started getting notices in the mail from Costco stores in Woodland Hills and Van Nuys. The license was all crooks needed to go on three shopping sprees at Costco.

"With the temporary card and my driver's license, [he] was able to write a check that he had fabricated in my name, with my name on the checks, with a false company, and it was on Bank of America," Norton said.

But to make things even crazier, the man Costco said was posing as Norton, passing the phony checks, looked nothing like the man who passed as Norton in that original traffic stop.

The most shocking use of his ID came just a few months ago. Norton had just finished a show in Hamburg, Germany, when at 2 a.m. he got a call from Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank. A homeless man with Norton's ID was treated and brought to the hospital by the Los Angeles Fire Department

Norton said the hospital was calling him to follow up on treatment and to "see if we can help you with your heroin addiction."

It wasn't Norton, obviously, but that didn't stop Norton from getting the hospital and ambulance bills. Norton had to use his passport, boarding pass, and other documents to prove he wasn't even in the country at the time.

So far, Norton has avoided paying for any of the acts perpetrated by the fake Jonathans, but it wasn't without a lot of time and effort. He called his stolen ID "the gift that keeps on giving."