Feds Nab Woman Accused of ID Thefts
February 04, 2008

TINLEY PARK, Ill. - A woman suspected of stealing other people's identities and duping some of the country's top universities into admitting her and giving her student loans has been arrested in a Chicago suburb, federal investigators say.

Esther Elizabeth Reed, 29, was arrested on a federal warrant Saturday in Tinley Park, said Malcolm Wiley, spokesman for the Secret Service.

Reed, who had been one of the Secret Service's most wanted fugitives, was indicted in September by a federal grand jury in Greenville, S.C., on charges of mail fraud, wire fraud, false identification documents and aggravated identity theft.

Reed used sophisticated scams to steal identities she used to gain entrance to California State University at Fullerton, Harvard and Columbia University, where she studied criminology and psychology, investigators said.

Reed also used the stolen identities to obtain more than $100,000 in student loans, according to the Secret Service.

She attended Columbia for two years as a graduate student under the name Brooke Henson before investigators discovered her identity was false, the Secret Service said. The real Henson, of Travelers Rest, S.C., has been missing since 1999., but investigators have said they do not believe Reed had anything to do with Henson's disappearance.

Wiley did not know when Reed would next appear in court.