ELIZABETHTOWN, Lancaster County — A Lancaster man is facing charges of identity theft, access device fraud, receiving stolen property and other related offenses after allegedly stealing a woman’s credit card and attempting to use it to pay for court costs and another transactions in Elizabethtown, according to arrest documents.
Elizabethtown police say Andrew C. Illingsworth, 24, accessed the Administrative Offices of the Pennsylvania Courts via the PA ePay system and used a stolen credit card to attempt to pay $860 in court costs and fines on November 30, 2015.
He also attempted to use the card to make a purchase at the Convenient Smoke Shop on East High Street in Elizabethtown, and tried to withdraw cash at an ATM machine on South Market Street in Elizabethtown on the same day, according to police.
After a long investigation, the charges were filed on August 28 of this year. Illingsworth is charged with a felony count of access device fraud, a two separate misdemeanor counts of access device fraud, one count of identity theft and one count of receiving stolen property for the offenses.
Illingsworth is still at large. He is also facing charges stemming from an incident on January 30 of this year, when he allegedly stabbed a man in the back. He is charged with aggravated assault and simple assault.
Police say the investigation began at 11:45 a.m. on November 30, 2015, when a resident on the 600 block of East Hummelstown Street in Elizabethtown reported that her car had been broken into and her wallet stolen. The wallet contained a driver’s license, a Target credit card, an ATM card and a Chase credit card, among other items, the victim told police.
The victim said Chase Card Services had alerted her that several attempts had been made to use her credit card at multiple Elizabethtown area businesses and in an attempted Internet charge in the Harrisburg area.
The first attempt occurred at 5:07 a.m. on November 30, when it was used in an attempt to pay Illingsworth’s court costs. The denied transaction at the smoke shop occurred at 11:35 a.m.
Police used surveillance footage taken from the smoke shop to identify Illingsworth as a suspect, and used records from the Administrative Offices of the Pennsylvania Courts to obtain an email address, which was attached to three different Facebook accounts associated with Illingsworth.
After obtaining court orders to get information from Microsoft and Facebook, police eventually confirmed the email addresses and Facebook accounts belonged to Illingsworth and filed the charges against him.
