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When Jeff Goldsmith saw the police at his house, he assumed they were looking for his neighbors.
But officers were there for him. They handcuffed Goldsmith in front of his Elkhart home Feb. 25 and arrested him. They had a warrant alleging that Goldsmith had beaten his girlfriend’s son in Fort Wayne.
The 6-year-old boy was kicked, hit and thrown so badly in April 2008, he had to be hospitalized for bruises to his kidneys and across his upper and lower body. He suffered abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting from the abuse, according to charges filed by the Allen County prosecutor’s office.
The trouble is, Goldsmith didn’t do it.
He’s never met the boy. He doesn’t have a girlfriend in Fort Wayne. He’s been with his wife in Elkhart for 20 years. The last time he was even in Fort Wayne was 2007 when he took his grandchildren to the Children’s Zoo, Goldsmith said.
Police arrested him because the real suspect stole his identity. On paper, Goldsmith, 48, and the suspect were the same man – same name and Social Security number.
As police drove him from his house to lockup, Goldsmith’s mind raced as he tried to figure out what could have prompted his arrest.
“I even register my dog. I don’t speed or anything,” he said. “I can’t figure out why they would be coming to arrest me, for God’s sake.”
Fortunately, Goldsmith’s plea of innocence was plausible enough to the Elkhart officers that they called the Allen County Sheriff’s Department and expressed concern that Goldsmith might not be the right man.
After making numerous phone calls, the Allen County warrants officer in charge of the case, Gabe Furnish, determined that Elkhart police had, indeed, arrested the wrong man. After about an hour and a half in jail, Goldsmith was released.
Indiana State Police Detective Brooks Johnson, who works on an identity theft task force, said that in the last year, he has helped clear false arrest warrants and criminal records for four or five people who were the victims of identity theft.
But Goldsmith’s case – being arrested on felony charges for a violent crime someone else committed – is something he’s never seen before.
Goldsmith said the only indication that his identity had been stolen was two bills he had received – one for car insurance on a truck he didn’t own and the other for a phone bill in Arkansas.
The Valspar Paints employee said that once he cleared the bills from his name, he didn’t think much about them. Before his arrest, he regularly monitored his credit report and took out identity theft insurance. He thought he was safe.
The case that sent Goldsmith to jail spans two states, two Indiana counties and multiple government agencies.
Police began investigating the abuse after the boy’s father brought him to a hospital near his southern Missouri home. When the boy’s mother dropped him off for a visit in April 2008, the father noticed bruises on the boy’s body, according to court documents.
The boy and his sister were living in Fort Wayne with their mother and her boyfriend, a man who was going by the name Jeff Goldsmith, the documents said.
The victim and his sister told investigators that “Daddy Jeff” threw the child down, hit and kicked him, according to the affidavit.
During the months-long investigation, Fort Wayne police were unable to interview either the boy’s mother or the suspect.
Finally, the prosecutor’s office filed formal charges for the crime. It’s unclear exactly when Jeffery Goldsmith in Elkhart got involved, but all of the identifying information, except physical description, on the documents from the prosecutor’s office belonged to him, not the suspect.
So when Furnish in the Allen County warrants division received the charges, he was looking for Jeff Goldsmith, 48, of Elkhart, not the real suspect. Furnish passed along the information to the Elkhart police and asked them to arrest him so he could stand trial in Allen County, according to his police report.
When Elkhart police called Furnish to tell him they probably arrested the wrong man, Furnish said he sprang into action.
“Who wants an innocent person in jail?” the county police officer said.
After several phone calls, Furnish talked to the victim’s father, who described his ex-wife’s boyfriend as 3 inches taller and 10 pounds heavier than the man Elkhart police had in custody. The boy’s father also said the suspect goes by at least two other names and keeps a post office box under the name Jeffery Goldsmith in Arkansas, according to Furnish’s police report.
When Furnish gave this information to Allen County Prosecutor Karen Richards, she withdrew the arrest warrant and Elkhart police released Goldsmith, the report said.
Furnish said he still doesn’t know the real suspect’s identity, and charges in the case have not been refiled.
Goldsmith said he’s trying not to hold the arrest against the police, but he is working to change his Social Security number so there are no more mistakes.
“If I can prove fraud, I know I can get a new one,” he said. “I think this pretty much counts.”
