By Joe Eaton
Center for Public Integrity

Like a growing number of disabled Americans on Medicaid, Keith Foreman, a 57-year-old in Metropolis, Ill., qualified for a personal caregiver to help him with daily activities like dressing, shaving, and preparing meals.

Foreman, who prosecutors say suffers from a spinal injury, hired his girlfriend, Sheila McDonald, for the job. In 2011, McDonald received almost $5,000 from Medicaid for six months of care she provided to Foreman.

These personal care services, which are available in all 50 states, are designed to help the sick, elderly, and disabled remain in their homes — and out of expensive nursing facilities.

But Foreman was not living at home. During the days marked on McDonald’s timesheets, Foreman was housed in the Massac County jail in Illinois, serving time for forging a stolen debit card signature at a local liquor store.

Like Foreman and McDonald, who both pleaded guilty to charges of making false statements, unscrupulous beneficiaries and home health workers are increasingly targeting personal care services programs for illegal money-making schemes, according to a new federal report. Investigators say lax requirements for both caregivers and patients, along with poor state and federal oversight, has made the rapidly growing programs a lucrative target for fraud.  And this isn’t the first time they’ve issued such a warning.

Report faults federal oversight of state programs
A Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General (OIG) report scheduled to be released Thursday faults the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) for inadequate oversight of personal care services programs, whose costs are shared by states and the federal government, as is the norm for Medicaid.  The report, which brings together six years of OIG investigations and 23 reports on the topic, describes a program hindered by poor claims documentation, insufficient monitoring of claims data for fraud and waste, and a crazy-quilt of varied requirements for personal care workers in different states.

“Historically, CMS has left a lot of the responsibility for overseeing waste, fraud and abuse to the states,” said Christi Grimm, special assistant to the principal deputy inspector general. “As a result, we have 301 different sets of requirements for caregivers across the states.” 

Although some states mandate criminal background checks and licensing for home health workers, Grimm said others lack even the most basic requirements, including age minimums,

which has led to cases in which juveniles escape prosecution for fraud and abuse. Worker requirements are set by counties in a number of states, she added, which has led to a hodge-podge of rules that are difficult to enforce, and nearly impossible to monitor.

“We are asking CMS to step up to the plate,” Grimm said, and use its authority to regulate and monitor the state programs.

The report includes six previous OIG recommendations to CMS and state agencies which have gone unimplemented. In a 2008 report that found five states may have paid up to $11 million in error for personal care services during one quarter of 2005, OIG recommended that the CMS work with states to stop payments for personal care when patients were receiving care in institutions, not at home. The agency agreed with the recommendation, but according to the OIG, the work has not been completed.

In addition to asking the agency to address previous recommendations, the report offers four new goals for CMS to improve oversight and monitoring of state plans, including standardizing rules for personal care workers to set minimum age and education levels, and require criminal background checks.

The report, however, seems unlikely to spur the agency to follow the OIG’s specific suggestions..  In a written response, CMS — part of the Department of Health and Human Services — explicitly concurred with only one of  the OIG recommendations: that it should provide states with claims data to help root out cases in which beneficiaries are simultaneously receiving both institutional care and home health services.  In response to the recommendation on establishing federal guidelines for personal care workers, CMS pointed out there is a shortage of care attendants.

 “Personal care services are an important part of keeping people in their homes and out of nursing homes, which lowers costs and improves the quality of life of the patient,” said CMS spokesman Brian Cook. “We are working to protect personal care from fraud and abuse by promoting stronger training programs for workers who provide personal care, working with states on background check programs for these workers, and developing new data methods to analyze claims for potential fraud and abuse."

Grimm called the CMS response to the report unacceptable. “It’s not uncommon for CMS … to identify things on the horizon, or things they hope to do, but not necessarily commit to doing something,” Grimm said, adding that CMS’s efforts so far simply have not worked. “[CMS] has the authority to do what we are asking. It has not done it yet. And it hasn’t committed to doing it after reading our report.”

A wealth of opportunities
According to investigators, most fraud schemes in personal care services involve billing for care that was not provided or was not allowed. Self-directed programs, which allow beneficiaries to hire and manage their helpers, may be particularly vulnerable, but some prosecutions have also involved home health care agencies.

In January, for example, the owner of a Minnesota home health care company outside Minneapolis was sentenced to two years in prison for cheating Medicaid out of more than $650,000 in charges for personal care services. In March, the owner of Families First Home Health Care in Sparta, N.C., pleaded guilty to fraud and money laundering stemming from a scheme in which she billed Medicaid for personal care services she did not perform and split the proceeds with plan members.

“Fraud goes where the money is,” said Barbara Zelner, executive director of the National Association of Medicaid Fraud Units, which represents state law enforcement agencies that investigate Medicaid fraud.  After nursing homes, Zelner said, home health represents one of the larger slices of state Medicaid budgets.

Personal care services programs have grown quickly since a 1999 Supreme Court decision held that unjustified segregation of the disabled is a civil rights violation. The ruling led to increased spending for home health services; in 2011, Medicaid paid more than $12 billion for personal care services, up 35 percent since 2005, according to the OIG. Investigators say program fraud has kept pace. In 2010, state Medicaid fraud units investigated more than 1,000 cases involving personal care services, more than any other type of Medicaid service.

Not everyone agrees with the OIG’s views on personal care services.  In 2011, an OIG review of Medicaid claims for personal care services in New Jersey found that 40 percent should have been denied. Sherl Brand, president of the Home Care Association of New Jersey, which advocates for home health care providers, questions the OIG’s work, saying the agency often draw broad conclusions from examinations of a limited number of claims. “It is almost a bit ridiculous because of the extrapolation they do,” Brand said.

New Jersey home health workers face criminal background checks and certification and licensure requirements, Brand said. Personal care services programs save money, she said, in addition to helping disabled people live better lives. When New Jersey was faced with budget cuts, Brand said the association determined the average weekly cost for personal care services was $242 dollars a week, only slightly higher than the cost of a single day in a nursing home.

But as funding for the programs increase, fraud follows. Kirk Ogrosky, a former top federal health care fraud prosecutor who is now a partner at the Washington law firm Arnold & Porter, said home health has long been a hotbed of fraud, both in Medicaid and in Medicare. The fraud, he said, is not hard to uncover. Ogrosky recalled that after an extensive analysis of Medicare claims, he sent agents out to interview questionable beneficiaries. When the agents knocked on the doors, they often learned the person they were looking for was at work, Ogrosky recalled.  “That’s utterly preposterous,” he said, “since home health requires that you are homebound.”

In other cases, Ogrosky said, agents found that home health care agencies were filing claims for beneficiaries who did not live at the homes indicated on the claims. “One of my favorite stories is about a homeless guy we found,” Ogrosky said. “He didn’t even have a home to be homebound to.”

The Center for Public Integrity is a non-profit independent investigative news outlet. For more of its stories visit publicintegrity.org.

Mitt Romney with Tiffany and James Catledge at 2010 fundraiser for Meg Whitman, GOP candidate for California governor.

Two figures at the center of an alleged $164 million real estate scam marketed out of South Florida have been indicted by a federal grand jury in San Francisco on mail fraud and conspiracy charges.

James B. Catledge, an investment guru who has a history of being a major Republican Party donor, and Canadian businessman Derek F.C. Elliott, are accused of fraudulently soliciting $91.3 million from investors to build a resort in the Dominican Republic that never opened.

Each man faces up to 20 years in prison, and a maximum fine that is twice the value of the property involved.

The six-page indictment announced Friday is a bare-bones document that, despite the enormous sums involved, provides few details about the scope of the alleged fraud, how many people were burned or the identities of victims.

The indictment grew out of an FBI investigation that began 2 1/2 years ago during a civil racketeering lawsuit in Miami federal court filed by 230 disgruntled investors in the ill-fated EMI Sun Village Resort and Spa.

Broward Bulldog.org reported in January 2010 that court-appointed special master Thomas Scott, a Miami lawyer and former federal judge and U.S. Attorney, had found evidence that Sun Village was actually a huge “Ponzi-style” scheme. He recommended that U.S and Canadian law enforcement investigate.

“The unassailable fact (is) that thousands of investors/owners and by extension their families in the U.S. and Canada, as well as other countries, have been financially destroyed,” Scott wrote in his 50-page report.

Indictment details
According to the indictment, Elliott was the president of various hospitality businesses in the Dominican Republic, including a pair of resorts. Catledge is a motivational speaker and the founder of several marketing companies that, among other things, sold investments in island resorts.

In 2005, the pair took out a 2005 bank loan to buy an old hotel near Santo Domingo they named the Sun Village Juan Dolio resort. They began renovations and recruited investors through Catledge’s Nevada-based sales and marketing companies Impact Inc. and Net Worth Solutions.

Sun Village marketed its Dominican properties out of an office in Doral in western Miami-Dade County. Money that flowed in was routed through an account at a Citibank branch in Tamarac, the Miami lawsuit said.

According to a statement released by prosecutors, Catledge and Elliott’s sales pitch “failed to tell investors that the full commissions being taken on their investment were approximately 44 percent, that the renovations were underfunded, that investors’ money was being used on other projects, and the returns they promised were unsupportable and could not be achieved.

The Miami special master’s report described Catledge as “the main architect of the Ponzi scheme.”

Catledge and Elliott diverted nearly $69 million from investors to commissions, other projects and to pay “guaranteed” interest to early investors, the indictment said.

‘Real estate secrets of the wealthy’
More details are contained in related, but non-criminal charges brought in May by the Securities and Exchange Commission against Catledge and Elliott. The principal allegation is that the men were involved in the fraudulent offering of unregistered investments for Juan Dolio and another Sun Village resort, Cofresi.

The SEC’s complaint contends the two men raised nearly $164 million selling timeshares and other ownership interests to approximately 1,200 investors between 2004 and 2009.  The complaint also stated the pair promised investors 5 to 12 percent annual returns, while also assuring that principal investments remained safe.

Catledge and Elliott used various sales materials to convince people to use their home equity and savings to invest in securities tied to the resorts, the SEC complaint said. One visual presentation was titled, “Real Estate Secrets of the Wealthy.”

Neither the indictment nor the SEC complaint details what happened to the millions that Catledge and Elliott allegedly siphoned away from investors.

The SEC, however, said Catledge set up a trust in the South Pacific’s Cook Islands where he funneled more than $15 million in commissions that bypassed his marketing company. He and his families were the only beneficiaries.

Court papers filed in the now-closed investor litigation in Miami say the money went to pay for the lavish lifestyle and gambling debts of the resorts’ developers.

The SEC complaint says that Elliott and his father, former Sunrise resident Frederick Elliott, originally purchased the Cofresi resort in 2003 and a year later needed additional funds to finish construction work. A mutual friend suggested they talk to Catledge, who could help them raise the capital they needed.

Net Worth sales associates soon began soliciting potential investors.

Both Juan Dolio and Cofresi were ultimately foreclosed. Investors were wiped out when both projects were sold at public auction in late 2009.

The Miami special master’s report blamed Elliott and his father for “mismanagement and/or essential theft of investor monies” that ultimately delivered “the fatal blows to the investors.”

Still, prosecutors or SEC attorneys have not accused Frederick Elliott of any wrongdoing.

The SEC’s complaint seeks disgorgement of all of Catledge and Derek Elliott’s allegedly ill-gotten gains. Also sought: fines and permanent injunctions against them and EMI Sun Village.

Big political donor
In 2008, while authorities contend the scam was in operation, Catledge contributed more than $100,000 to the Republican National Committee, John McCain’s presidential campaign and other Republican causes.

Catledge and his wife, Tiffany, also contributed to Mitt Romney’s 2008 presidential campaign before he dropped out of the race.

On May 28, 2008, Catledge and his wife attended what the Deseret News in Salt Lake City reported was a $70,000-a-couple dinner with President George W. Bush at Mitt and Ann Romney’s vacation home in Deer Valley, Utah.

In April 2010, the Catledges attended a California fundraiser for Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman. California records show Catledge gave $30,000 to Whitman’s unsuccessful bid.

Catledge has reported no contributions to federal candidates this election cycle.

Catledge’s attorney, Las Vegas celebrity lawyer David Chesnoff, was unavailable for comment. He previously said his client maintains his innocence.

“He categorically denies engaging in any criminal conduct,” Chesnoff said.

Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

Supporters of President Barack Obama and his various campaigns also have been linked to alleged wrongdoing, both criminal and civil.

Antoin "Tony" Rezko, a Chicago businessman and longtime Obama fundraiser, was convicted of fraud and bribery charges in 2008 in connection with an attempt to extort millions of dollars from businesses seeking to do business with Illinois state agencies. He was sentenced to 10 ½ years in prison.

In April, the Associated Press reported that Abake Assongba,  a major New York donor to Obama, had been accused in a civil lawsuit in Florida of defrauding a businessman and impersonating a bank official.

Despite last week’s indictment, neither Catledge nor Elliott have been arrested.

Catledge, 45, who lives in Rancho Santa Fe, California, received a summons and is due for arraignment Oct. 5, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Francisco.

No court date has been scheduled for Elliot, 42, who lives near Toronto. The spokesman declined comment when asked if prosecutors consider Elliott a fugitive.

BrowardBulldog.org is a Florida-based nonprofit, independent and nonpartisan news organization that seeks to provide authoritative reporting in the public interest while upholding high standards of fairness and accuracy.

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Metropolitan Police

Metropolitan Police have been investigating the disappearance of Carole Waugh.

LONDON -- British police fear a former oil executive has been abducted by a gang of fraudsters who have tried to sell her $1 million London apartment and may have forced her to hand over her bank codes, according to reports Thursday.

Detectives searching for Carole Waugh, 50, said that an unidentified man impersonating her brother had met people in her apartment in central London's upmarket Marylebone neighborhood in an apparent attempt to sell the property, The Times reported (site operates behind a paywall).

Detective Chief Inspector John McFarlane also told Britain's Press Association that "very substantial amounts of money" had been stolen from Waugh's bank accounts.

Waugh, who has previously worked in the oil industry in London and Libya, has not been seen by family or friends since April, when they discussed a planned 50th birthday party for her in June. The case has been passed to the London Metropolitan Police's homicide and serious crimes division.

'Completely out of character'
McFarlane told the PA that financial activity linked to her identity has also grown "incrementally more suspicious." Police have released images of a man outside a supermarket in north London on July 10, where one of Waugh's ATM cards was used, the PA reported.

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"Ms. Waugh is a successful businesswoman and her disappearance is completely out of character," McFarlane said, according to the London Evening Standard.

"Following her disappearance, there have been a number of fraudulent transactions associated with Ms. Waugh's bank account. ... There are also a number of her personal possessions that cannot currently be located," the newspaper quoted him as saying.

Police officers told The Times that Waugh had been impersonated by at least three women at financial institutions across London. Earlier this week, two women, aged 48 and 50, were arrested on charges of conspiracy to defraud in connection with the case. The 48-year-old has been freed on bail, the newspaper said.

Three men and two other women have been arrested and bailed in connection with the case, reports said. A fourth man, named as 40-year-old Rakesh Bhayani, appeared in a London court via video link on Wednesday, The Times said.

Waugh's family, who are based in the north of England, said they did not know much about Carole Waugh’s life in London. She was able to work sporadically since moving to London in 2008 because she had been "very careful" with her money, her brother Chris, 53, told the PA.

Online dating link?
Waugh is single and police have been trying to trace men she may have met through dating sites, The Times said.

Chris Waugh told reporters that his sister had been planning a vacation in Las Vegas with her female friends. He appealed for his sister's friends, as well as any recent work colleagues, to come forward.

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"We are keen to track them down to see what was going on," the PA quoted him as saying. "If we could find the friends, just to see what light they can shine on [my] sister."

Chris Waugh said it was a "very distressing moment" when he heard someone was posing as him in a fraudulent attempt to sell his sister's apartment, according to the PA.

'Our imaginations have been running wild'
He said his family was "very proud" of his younger sister, who he described as "very focused, strong and driven," The London Evening Standard reported.

"The last time we saw Carole was at Easter when we all got together in (the northern English city of) Durham. We had a great time and we were all very excited about Carole's 50th birthday party in June. We were planning how we would celebrate and I was looking forward to making a fuss of her, as she did for my birthday," the newspaper quoted him as saying.

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"There was nothing to suggest she would go missing. It was all very strange and completely out of character because my sister rings my mother every other day and suddenly, within days of getting together at Easter, the phone calls just stopped," the Evening Standard quoted Waugh as saying.

Members of her family told The Guardian newspaper that it was highly unusual for Carole Waugh not to check in regularly by telephone.

"Our imaginations have been running wild. I've considered several options, she could have gone on a quick holiday but that became less likely as the time went, and because she would still have telephoned mother," Chris Waugh told The Guardian.

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N.J. Sex Offender Internet Registry

The poster child of sex offenders who altered their digital identity is Fran Kuni, who changed his name to Jamie Shepard and was able to get a job as a U.S. Census worker in New Jersey before being busted by a mom who recognized him when he knocked on the door of her home.

Nearly one in six convicted sex offenders is using sophisticated techniques invented by identity thieves to avoid their legally mandated registration requirements, a new study has found. These digital absconders might be able to avoid post-incarceration restrictions by living near schools and playgrounds, and could possibly gain employment working with children.

The study, conducted by Utica College and funded by the U.S. Justice Department, estimates that roughly 92,000 of the 570,000 registered sex offenders across the country are systematically manipulating their names, birthdays, Social Security numbers and other personal identifiers so they can live as they want while appearing to satisfy court-imposed or statutory restrictions.

"These are offenders who are flying under the radar and authorities don't know it," said Don Rebovich, the Utica professor who directed the study. "The authorities really don’t have the resources to keep on checking on these people. Offenders find where the vulnerabilities are in the system and exploit them."

These digital absconders create two obvious problems. Communities expend energy and resources dealing with offenders who aren't really there -- local police knock on doors and send notices to warn neighbors; public listings are published on the Internet. And sex offenders live where they please as normal adults, without any protective measures kicking in.

"In the worst-case scenario, by thwarting registration requirements, they could potentially have easier access to children," said Staca Shehan, director of case analysis at the Center for Missing and Exploited Children, who is familiar with the study. "(In) those jurisdictions that have residency restrictions that would not allow (offenders) to live within distance of a school, daycare or park, (they) could avoid that type of requirement."

While the study found that an average of 16.2 percent of sex offenders manipulate their identities nationally, some states fared worse: Louisiana, Washington, D.C., Nevada, Tennessee and Delaware all had digital absconder rates of higher than 25 percent.

Officials in Tennessee, Nevada and Delaware challenged the study's conclusions and complained that they had not been contacted by the researchers for additional information that might have clarified the results; officials in the other states did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

'Strategic' manipulation
Shehan said there are generally two kinds of sex offender absconders: those who simply fail to keep their records current, and hope they fall through the cracks; and those who are more systematic in their evasion, intentionally altering their identities so they can circumvent the restrictions. 

"That takes a lot more thought," she said. "They are much more strategic about what they are doing ... and so that's much more concerning."

In one celebrated case of sex offender identity manipulation, a convict named Frank Kuni changed his name to Jamie Shepard and was able to get a job as a U.S. Census worker in New Jersey. Kuni was recognized by a mom after he knocked on the door of her Pennsauken home, and he was later sentenced to three years in prison. Kuni’s case attracted national headlines because of the fear it created surrounding temporary Census workers.

The Utica study, believed to be the first attempt to quantify these more strategic absconders, was conducted by Utica College's Center for Identity Management, set up to examine a variety of identity issues in the digital age. Rebovich is director of the center.

It's well known that some sex offenders neglect their registration requirements, dropping off the grid and accepting only cash-paying jobs to remain hidden. But the Utica study found something more subtle, and perhaps more disturbing -- sex offenders who appear to be satisfying their registration requirements while living a digital double life.

In a parallel survey of 223 law enforcement agencies from 46 states, Utica found that awareness of ID-theft style registry evasion was low -- only 5 percent of respondents said they knew of an identity manipulation case within their jurisdiction. 

And nearly 40 percent of the agencies responded that they had zero absconders, suggesting some law enforcement agencies are unaware of the problem.

The power of the Utica study lies in the use of sophisticated algorithms developed by private firm ID Analytics, a fraud-fighting company used by many large banks and other financial institutions. ID Analytics receives more than 1 billion credit applications and other credit-related events from clients every year. It uses sophisticated software to track the behavior of identity thieves across the credit system, and can find fraud that individual firms miss. It knows, for example, if a criminal uses a systematic series of birthdays or addresses on a set of credit card applications at various banks in an attempt to evade fraud detection. The ID Analytics tool has enough data that it can generally tell the difference between honest typographical errors and systematic fraud attempts. 

ID Analytics ran sex offender data through its massive database of credit-related events, and found evidence of rampant identity manipulation among the offenders.

Kristin Helm, a spokeswoman for Tennessee's sex registry, challenged the study's findings, saying that fewer than 1 percent of that state's sex offenders are absconders. Criminals have always used false identities to try to evade police, but law enforcement systems are geared to handle that issue, she said. "Fingerprints obtained by law enforcement identify individuals regardless of a name or Social Security number," she said, adding that names sometimes change for legitimate reasons, too, such as marriage. 

But Stephen Coggeshall, chief technology officer for ID Analytics, said his technology is well-versed in screening out mundane reasons for identity changes and finding patterns that specifically indicate active evasion is taking place.

"This goes way beyond typos," he said. "These are people who have slightly adjusted or substantially adjusted their personally identifiable information for a reason. They are actively doing so, and we are observing them use these aliases relatively recently."

Nevada spokeswoman Julie Butler also questioned the validity of the study, which she had not seen. She said that Nevada uses fingerprints to track sex offenders, so identity manipulation techniques would be ineffective.

"Our registry is fingerprint-based. We don't base it on date of birth, or Social Security number, or name," Butler said. "They can put down their name as whatever and we still have them in the database."

But Coggeshall responded that even in states which use fingerprint identification, an identity manipulator would only be discovered when trying to engage in an activity – such as becoming an elementary school teacher – which triggers a fingerprint evaluation. 

"In general it doesn't help you track where they are or if they're living under an alias at an unregistered location," he said. "It can help to find sex offenders as they enroll in certain groups, but many … groups don't routinely fingerprint new enrollees."

SSNs connected to multiple people
Two years ago, using this tool on a database of Social Security numbers, ID Analytics found that rampant evidence of identity theft: 5 million SSNs were connected to three or more U.S. adults in credit applications, and 140,000 were associated with five or more people, indicating almost certain fraud. The tool can also track individual identity manipulators, as ID Analytics calls them, as they attempt various frauds across an array of credit issuers.

This tool was turned on the sex offender registry problem at the invitation of Utica College in Utica, N.Y., beginning last year. ID Analytics took a large sample -- nearly 100,000 -- of the 570,000 active registered sex offender records and ran them through its credit application database, looking for signs of manipulation.

The findings were disturbing. In Louisiana, the study found, nearly two-thirds of offenders' records showed signs of manipulation. Rebovich theorized that Louisiana's problem might stem from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, which gave some people a golden opportunity to drop off the grid.

Officials in Louisiana did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

In many cases, the study found, the steps criminals take are subtle -- changing an address from "440 Monroeville Road" to "434 Monroeville Road," for example. In fact, in the majority of cases, digital absconders were much more likely to move across town than across the country. Absconders who fake their address are six times more likely to remain in the same state than to cross state lines, the study found, and 90 percent of those who remain in state stay within 40 miles of their original registered address. In many cases, the data shows, those addresses belong to a family member. That might allow absconders to show up on a moment's notice at their registered address in case local police do a random check, Rebovich said.

But the address change could also allow them to apply for jobs and housing they would otherwise be unable to qualify for, he said.

While half of the manipulations involve bad addresses, plenty of other types of evasion are going on, the study found. One subject studied had five names, three Social Security numbers and four dates of birth, for example.

About 10,000 offenders had used at least four different Social Security numbers, Rebovich said. The evidence indicates this was usually done to evade the court registration requirements rather than commit financial identity theft, the study found.

One reason sex offenders seem to get away with evasion is that registration requirements are set by states and vary widely. In some states, convicts merely send updates through the U.S. mail to state officials, and are subjected to little, if any, verification. In others, officers try to check on sex offenders, but ofter are assigned hundreds, or even thousands of offenders, to track.

In other states, such as Florida, there are strict requirements and frequent random inspections, Rebovich said. That shows up in the data -- Florida's digital absconder rate is about half the national average, at 9.4 percent.

The study was funded by the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Assistance, which plans on issuing a comprehensive report later this fall. Requests for comment from the Department of Justice went unanswered.

'System is never going to be perfect'
Shehan, of the Center for Missing and Exploited Children, said she didn't believe that the potentially high rate of digital absconders means the entire sex offender registry program is broken. In fact, she said the situation has improved since passage of the Child Safety and Protection Act of 2006, which instituted some national standards on offender registries.

Still, she said it's important that states move to biometric identifiers, such as fingerprints, to maintain more accurate records of offenders and their whereabouts.

"Criminals are constantly thinking of ways to beat the system," she said. "The system is never going to be perfect."

Rebovich is hoping the study will spur new methods for checking up on sex offenders, including techniques that would seem familiar to those who work in financial fraud. In a model developed by Utica and ID Analytics, offenders could be given a score, similar to a credit score, which would rate the likelihood that identity manipulation was occurring. 

"We are trying to develop a predictive model," he said. "So we can turn it into an alert system, so states can do this in real time, if they want to."  

Coggeshall said such an alert system would have helped police track down Frank Kuni before he was able to get a job with the Census Bureau.

"In retrospect, we know there are things we would have been able to observe" he said.

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