I think I’m a pretty smart guy and I’ve been around the block or two, but a phone call I received last week made me aware that I can even be susceptible to fraud.
While doing some work in my garage on Aug. 10 I received a phone call from an unknown I.D. In my line of work, I can ill afford to ignore phone calls unless my phone tags it as a spam call. There are some politicians who I get calls from who pop up as unknown I.D.
The person identified themselves as a law enforcement officer. The name he used and his bearing on the phone made me take him seriously. I’ve talked to many law enforcement officers in my career, and this person certainly had me fooled at first.
This person gave me the name of a magistrate judge. I know the names of U.S. District Court judges in our state, since I do write a lot about federal lawsuits of state agencies and officials. But I can’t say I can identify the names of magistrate judges. But this officer told me in June, I was served a summons for federal jury duty, that someone had signed for me, and that I had missed my dates.
As a result, I was told I had to report to the Wood County Sheriff’s Office immediately to get this all straightened out. If I refused to come, then a warrant would be issued for my arrest on the charges of failure to appear and contempt of court.
Now, part of my brain thought there was something strange about all of this. I knew I had never had a federal marshal or anyone else show up at my house to have me sign a summons, and my wife had never signed anything on my behalf. Also, it made no sense for me to drive to the Wood County Sheriff’s Office. Despite writing for the Parkersburg News, I haven’t lived in Parkersburg since the summer of 2008, and I’ve lived in Charleston since January 2010.
For that matter, I can literally see the Robert C. Byrd U.S. Courthouse in Charleston from my hill. It’s probably a mile or slightly more away from me. Why on earth would I have to drive to Wood County to handle this matter when I could just go to the federal courthouse? The caller kept insisting that was where he was and that was where I had to go. Not only that, I was not allowed to hang up the phone, otherwise he would take that as me refusing to come and making me a fugitive.
We went back and forth for probably 10 minutes. I grew up around law enforcement and I have respect for police, deputies, troopers, marshals, and other forms of law enforcement. But I’ll admit to resorting to choice language with this person. But he never once broke from the script or never once left me with the impression that he wasn’t a legit law enforcement officer.
But the more we talked, the more this didn’t seem right. Yet, he didn’t ask me for any personal information, such as a Social Security Number, credit card numbers, or a bank account. He did read my address to me, but my home address isn’t top secret. I don’t know if he was waiting for me to break down and cry so he could then conveniently offer me a way to pay to avoid all of this.
I didn’t cry. I just kept getting angry. At one point he told me he was taking notes and recording the call and all of this would be used against me. Two could play at that game, so I used my phone call recording service and told him I was now recording on my end.
“At this time, I’m going to ask you sir…are you going to come down, allow us to get our paperwork done and release you,” the “officer” said. “I need to know how you’re going to proceed, because I’m not going to deal with all the attitude and stuff today. I’m trying to give you a helping hand here.”
“You’re not helping me at all,” I yelled.
“I can simply disconnect and send a couple of deputies to your last known location and have you detained, and you’ll remain in custody until you get in front of a judge on first appearance,” He continued. “With failure to appear, it’s highly unlikely you would get a bond. You could possibly be here up to 90 days. Or you can come in and spend one afternoon with us and get this squared away.”
The “officer” finally hung up on me after the following exchange. Though I thought he was still on the line and didn’t hang up until conferring with my wife and a lawyer friend, who also said it seemed like a scam.
“We have to go with the process that has been implemented by the people we have elected in office,” he said. “We have to follow these procedures.”
“The federal judiciary are appointed by the president,” I said. “Nobody elected them, what are you talking about?”
After talking to my wife and my lawyer friend, I called Wood County Sheriff Rick Woodyard, who had a good chuckle. The Sheriff’s Office was already closed for the day. But he also told me this is a growing scam and that the callers were using real names of law enforcement officers when making these calls.
I’m the type of guy who can smell a phishing email from a mile away and likes to play games with spam calls. But this call last week, even while setting off my nonsense detector, still left me somewhat scared. The U.S. District Court’s website has a page dedicated to this type of jury scam. You don’t get a summons; you get a questionnaire first.
The funny thing is I’d like to serve on a jury, but most attorneys and judges see my job title and instantly reject me.
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