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Used stolen credit cards to spend at least $4,126

Remny Gomez, 25, of West New York, was sentenced to three years in state prison Friday by Superior Court Judge Robert J. Mega for committing identity theft.

Mega also ordered Gomez to pay $4,126 in restitution. The sentence was based on his guilty plea to second-degree theft of identity, a charge contained in a 2010 Union County grand jury indictment.

In pleading guilty, Gomez admitted that between Feb. 16 and March 13, 2008, he fraudulently used other people’s personal identifying information to commit insurance fraud and to make credit card purchases without their authorization.

The investigation began after Gomez was arrested on Feb. 17, 2008 by the West New York police while driving a stolen, “re-tagged” 2003 BMW 745. The West New York police investigation determined that Gomez was in possession of fraudulently obtained insurance identification. The case was then referred the matter to the state Office of the Insurance Fraud Prosecutor for further investigation.

While that investigation was pending, Gomez was arrested on March 13, 2008 while attempting to use a $100 gift card to purchase an $850 computer in a Walmart in Secaucus. A check-out clerk noticed that the account numbers on the check-out slip did not match the numbers on the gift card. Further investigation revealed that Gomez possessed a number of credit cards that had been "re-encoded," meaning that the credit cards had been digitally altered.

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Specifically, Gomez fraudulently possessed these documents: A Commerce Bank Visa Debit card, an All Access Gift credit card, a Bank of America Visa card, two PNC Visa Check Cards, a Commerce Bank credit card, and a Best Buy Reward Zone MasterCard and a Citibank credit card.

The investigation determined that Gomez used the fraudulent credit and debit cards to make at least $4,126 worth of purchases.

Det. Jarek Pyrzanowski and Deputy Attorney General Dennis Kwasnik were assigned to the investigation.

—TOM HESTER SR., NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM