Government Overreached in Identity Theft Case, Supreme Court Rules Unanimously

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The Supreme Court limited the reach of the federal Identity Theft Penalty Enhancement Act, unanimously rebuffing the Biden administrationโ€™s efforts to prosecute a man already convicted of Medicaid fraud with a separate charge of aggravated identity theft arising out of the same fraud case.

The 9โ€“0 opinion (pdf) in Dubin v. United States (court file 22-10) was issued on June 8 and authored by Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Justice Neil Gorsuch filed a concurring opinion.

The Identity Theft Penalty Enhancement Act mandates a two-year prison sentence for violations.

When President George W. Bush signed the law in 2004, he said it established the federal โ€œoffense of aggravated identity theftโ€ to ensure that someone convicted of that crime would receive jail time โ€œfor stealing a personโ€™s good name.โ€

โ€œThese punishments will come on top of any punishment for crimes that proceed from identity theft,โ€ the 43rd president said at the time.

The act, Bush said, โ€œraises the standard of conduct for people who have access to personal records through their work at banks, government agencies, insurance companies, and other storehouses of financial data.โ€

But the Supreme Court disagreed with the U.S. Department of Justiceโ€™s argument that petitioner David Fox Dubin was automatically guilty under the act because a fraudulent Medicaid billing form include the patientโ€™s Medicaid reimbursement number as a โ€œmeans of identification.โ€

Dubin worked as a managing partner for PARTS, a company in Austin, Texas, created by his father, licensed psychologist William Dubin.

Both men were convicted by a U.S. district court for a scheme to defraud Texasโ€™s Medicaid program.

Medicaid is a joint federalโ€“state program that serves low-income people of all ages and varies from state to state. Itโ€™s run by state and local governments within federal guidelines. Each state sets its own rules about eligibility and services.

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