Couple found guilty of stealing identities of dead babies to dodge debts

globalnews.ca:

Hawaii has been convicted of conspiracy, passport fraud and identity theft for stealing the names of dead babies.A jury in Hawaii deliberated for about two hours before handing down a guilty verdict to Walter Glenn Primrose and Gwynn Darle Morrison, who had been living under the names Bobby Fort and Julie Montague, respectively, for decades.Prosecutors argued during the trial that Primrose and Morrison assumed the stolen identities in order to dodge substantial debts they had accrued. Primrose went on to spend 20 years working for the U.S.

Coast Guard under the name Fort, where he obtained secret-level security clearance.After the couple were arrested, but before their trial, prosecutors revealed that police had seized faded Polaroid photos from the couple’s home, in which Primrose and Morrison are posing in uniforms of the KGB, the former Russian spy agency.Lawyers for the couple said they wore the jackets for fun, as a joke, and prosecutors later backed away from any Russian spy intrigue. There was no mention of the espionage allegations at trial.At the start of the trial, assistant U.S.

attorney Tom Muehleck said the real Bobby Fort has been dead for more than 50 years. The baby, born in Texas, had “a bad cough” and lived three months, Muehleck said.A witness, Tonda Montague Ferguson, told the court she was in Grade 8 when her mother gave birth to the real Julie Montague in January 1968.“I will never forget the image of my father walking down the hall” of a Texas hospital waiting room to tell them the baby was born with a lot of birth defects and wouldn’t survive, Ferguson said.She recalled helping her father take down the nursery at home “so mom wouldn’t have to come home and see that.” The infant lived for 21 days.