Bernanke Identity Thief Sentenced

An otherwise stressful week for Federal Reserve Bank chairman Ben Bernanke was capped off with some good news: According to Business Week, the man responsible for pilfering the identities of Bernanke and his wife, Anna, was sentenced by a Virginia federal judge on Jan. 22.

Bernanke’s Senate reconfirmation appears more secure after the White House tamped down talk last week of voting him down (according to Sunday’s Wall Street Journal). Frustration about high unemployment and lingering anger over the bank bailouts — engineered by Bernanke and other officials appointed by President George W. Bush — had briefly put Bernanke’s post in jeopardy.

At least he knows that the people who profited from his identity theft are behind bars.


Leonardo Darnell Zanders, 49, of Dolton, Ill., was sentenced in federal court last Friday to 16 years in prison for his role in a scheme that made victims of Bernanke and hundreds of others. Zanders had pleaded guilty to helping lead a ring that caused about $1.5 million in losses by at least 10 financial institutions, BusinessWeek reported. Zanders also was ordered to pay $1.4 million in restitution.

Bernanke reported last August that his family had been the target of identity thieves, following the theft of his wife’s purse from the chair of a Starbucks in Washington, D.C., in 2008.

Although his office declined comment on Zanders’ sentencing, in August Bernanke said in a statement that his family “was but one of 500 separate instances traced to one crime ring. I am grateful for the law enforcement officers who patiently and diligently work to solve and prevent these financial crimes.”


Zanders and partner Clyde Austin Gray of Waldorf, Md., used information supplied by a network of accomplices — including office workers and pickpockets like the Starbucks thief — to create phony driver’s licenses. They then used the IDs to access the victims’ bank accounts. According to The Washington Examiner, one of the accomplices was a receptionist at a D.C. doctor’s office, Makieta Leake, who gave patients’ Social Security numbers and canceled checks to the ringleaders.

After police caught on to Leake, she cooperated in helping police catch Zanders and Gray, who was sentenced to more than 11 years in prison.