Many minors can’t wait until the day they can walk into a bar and order a drink. For some, it doesn’t mean waiting for their 21st birthday. It means waiting for a fake ID to arrive in the mail, thanks to one of the numerous Web sites advertising “official-looking” pieces of false identification.
What these underage people may not realize is that carrying a fake ID, even without the intention of using it, is a felony offense.
On April 18, when University student Jack Kaplan, 19, was arrested for shoplifting at the UO Bookstore, Eugene Police Department officer Randy Ellis noticed two IDs in Kaplan’s wallet.
In addition to his legitimate ID, Kaplan had a fake he had purchased from newphotoid.com, bringing his charges up from misdemeanor shoplifting to felony forgery.
The Web site, which can’t currently be accessed, advertised “top quality novelty photo” identification from any of the 50 states for $75. The Web site stated the photo ID cards were for novelty purposes only and perfectly legal, but this isn’t true.
“Novelty is having an Elvis Presley ID in your wallet,” Ellis said. “These Web sites make it easy for students to get sucked into committing a felony without realizing it.”
Kaplan wasn’t impressed with the quality of the fake Oregon ID when he got it in the mail, Ellis said. The hologram was especially bad, but he thought he could pass it off in Texas over the summer.
“I have a real problem when seemingly nice kids do dumb-shit stuff,” Ellis said. “He shouldn’t have been carrying it around if he wasn’t even using it.”
Most fake IDs are confiscated by bartenders, store clerks and restaurant employees. They’re usually sent to the Oregon Liquor Control Commission, which hands them over to the district attorney,
OLCC Administrative Assistant Amanda Cooper said.
On average, the OLCC receives about 100 confiscated IDs from Lane, Douglas, Benton and Lincoln counties each month, Cooper said.
“I don’t want students, just for the sake of a beer, to have a felony on their record,” Ellis said. EPD Sgt. Terry Fitzpatrick said fake IDs are a big problem in Eugene. He echoed Ellis’ concern about felony records being ever-present throughout the life of a college graduate who could have otherwise had more potential for success.
Even if the felony is plea-bargained down to a misdemeanor, it will continue to show up as a felony arrest on local law enforcement computers and an officer will be less likely to let the offender off with a warning, Ellis said.
An employer might give an applicant who is a convicted marijuana user a second chance if they say they’ve been clean for a long time, “but not with forgery,” Fitzpatrick said. Charges of that nature depict “core honesty values,” he said, and are less likely to be overlooked.
“Kids don’t understand how serious this can be. It can follow them for 10 or 20 years,” Fitzpatrick said, adding that when they finally get it off their record and are ready to start anew, they’ll be pushing 40.
