Bail was set at $85,000 yesterday for a 46-year-old Rumson woman arrested on charges of using her 85-year-old mother’s identity to falsely obtain credit cards and loans totaling $110,000, the Asbury Park Press reports.
Mary E. Kohler faces charges of second-degree theft by deception, third-degree forgery and third-degree identity theft. Among the allegations: that she financed a 2007 Mercedes convertible worth more than $55,000 using her mother’s identity.
Kohler was arrested after a joint investigation by the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office and Spring Lake Heights police department. The case was opened last August after the victim began getting phone calls from various credit card companies, collection agencies and lenders demanding payment, Monmouth County Prosecutor Luis A. Valentin told the Press.
“The fact that the victim is the defendant’s 85-year-old mother only makes this case all the more distressing,” Valentin said in a prepared statement.
If convicted, Kohler could face 20 years in state prison, Valentin said.
