Troopers say inmate stole personal data

He tricked hotel clerks into giving guests' information, authorities say.
LANCASTER, Ohio (AP) -- An inmate is accused of masterminding an elaborate scheme to steal people's personal information while behind bars, an Ohio State Highway Patrol investigator said.
Lonny Bristow, who has previous convictions for identity theft and phone harassment, was indicted in October on theft and fraud-related charges.
"This is not his first rodeo," Trooper Mark Ball said. "He is extremely intelligent. He is just not using his intelligence legally."
Bristow, a 33-year-old serving a 13-year prison term, called Holiday Inn hotels in seven states, claiming to be a company executive, and told the clerks that law enforcement officials were looking for an escaped convict who may have checked in, Ball said.
Once clerks gave him the names, room numbers and credit card information of men staying at the hotels, Bristow would call the guests, posing as the credit card company, Ball said. He would claim there was unusual spending on the cards before asking for personal identification numbers that went with the accounts.
As highway patrol and prison investigators sifted through mail and other items in Bristow's cell at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility near Lucasville, they also found evidence he engineered other schemes to steal personal information.
Bristow had used blank documents from a lawsuit he had filed in Indiana to subpoena traffic tickets, which contain personal information, from the Fairfield County Municipal Court in Lancaster in July and August, Ball said.
The tickets are considered legal documents and, unlike common public records requests and other mail sent to inmates, legal papers cannot be read or confiscated by corrections officers, said Andrea Dean, spokeswoman for Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.
Court officials said the Social Security numbers were covered on the records, but investigators said they could still be seen. Investigators said Bristow may have used those Social Security numbers to set up phone accounts to circumvent the prison telephone system that all inmates are required to use.