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Jocelyn Kirsch back in Philly prison

Convicted identity thief of the famed "Bonnie and Clyde" duo will face a hearing in federal court.

Snapshot of convicted identity thief Jocelyn Kirsch as a Drexel student, left. Police mug shots, right. Kirsch, one half of the famed "Bonnie and Clyde" duo, will face a hearing in federal court.
Snapshot of convicted identity thief Jocelyn Kirsch as a Drexel student, left. Police mug shots, right. Kirsch, one half of the famed "Bonnie and Clyde" duo, will face a hearing in federal court.Read more

JOCELYN KIRSCH of "Bonnie and Clyde" identity-theft fame is back in Philly.

Right now, she's holed up in a prison cell at the Federal Detention Center at 7th and Arch streets in Center City, across from the federal courthouse, where she has a date before a magistrate judge on Monday.

The 28-year-old is here because she allegedly violated her probation in her identity-theft case by shoplifting in California, where she was living, and failing to pay part of her restitution in the Philadelphia case.

A Federal Bureau of Prisons spokesman said yesterday that Kirsch has been locked up in Philadelphia since April 7.

After her initial appearance before a magistrate judge Monday, Kirsch, on April 29, will have to face U.S. District Judge Eduardo Robreno for a violation-of-probation hearing. Robreno, the sentencing judge in the identity-theft case, could give her more prison time.

Kirsch, the brunette, buxom beauty, was a Drexel University student when she and her then-boyfriend, Edward Anderton, a University of Pennsylvania graduate, spent a year stealing the identities of their Center City condo neighbors, friends and co-workers.

They scammed their unsuspecting victims of nearly $120,000. Using the victims' names, they got credit cards, opened accounts on eBay and forged checks. They also lavished themselves with trips to Paris, Hawaii and the Caribbean, and bought thousands of dollars worth of clothing and jewelry.

Their splurge ended when they were arrested in November 2007 by Philly police.

The feds later adopted the case, and Kirsch and Anderton each pleaded guilty to conspiracy, aggravated identity theft, fraud and money laundering.

In October 2008, Kirsch was sentenced by Robreno to five years in prison. A month later, Anderton was sentenced to four years behind bars.

Robreno also ordered Kirsch to make restitution of $101,000 and to be supervised by probation officials for five years after her release. As part of her probation, Kirsch was not supposed to commit another crime.

But, alas. She did.

Kirsch was arrested on June 17, 2012, by police in Walnut Creek, Calif., about half an hour from San Francisco. She was charged with two felony counts of commercial burglary and related offenses after allegedly shoplifting at a Nordstrom's department store.

She had allegedly stolen stuff from other stores, too - J.Crew, BCBG, Banana Republic - but those stores apparently declined to bring charges against her.

She was convicted of two felony counts of second-degree commercial burglary on Nov. 4, 2013, in Contra Costa Superior Court, according to Bobbi Mauler, executive assistant to the district attorney in Contra Costa County, where Walnut Creek is located.

On Jan. 16 of this year, she was sentenced to one year in jail, followed by two years' supervision, Mauler said.

Kirsch was in a Contra Costa County jail in Richmond, Calif., before she was brought to Philadelphia, according to an order signed by Robreno last month.

An August 2012 report filed by the U.S. Probation Office in Philadelphia sheds some light on what happened in Walnut Creek.

The report said that based on the Walnut Creek arrest report:

Kirsch was in Nordstrom's on June 17, 2012. A store employee saw her carry a Tory Burch clutch purse and six clothing items into a fitting room, then leave without the clothes. Before Kirsch exited the store, she put the purse on a chair.

Kirsch returned to the store a short while later, grabbed the purse and left without paying. The employee brought her back to the store, where Kirsch admitted to stealing the purse and removing a sensor from a dress, damaging it. The purse and dress were worth a total of $463.

Cops also found Kirsch carrying a shopping bag with goods from Banana Republic, totaling $318.50. Kirsch admitted to stealing the items on the same day before her theft at Nordstrom's. An officer brought the items back to Banana Republic, but the "store declined prosecution because the theft had not been observed by" a store employee, the probation office's report said.

Cops also found two shopping bags in the trunk of Kirsch's car. One with clothes from J.Crew; the other from BCBG. "Kirsch admitted to stealing some of the merchandise and claimed it was stolen several weeks earlier," the report said.

It said J.Crew employees declined prosecution and that, at the time the probation office's report was written, no charges had been brought by BCBG.

The probation office also said Kirsch violated another condition of Robreno's: She failed to make some of her court-ordered monthly restitution payments.

Kirsch was released from federal prison on Nov. 25, 2011, and was supposed to begin making minimum monthly payments of $250. She allegedly failed to pay up in December 2011, and for some months in 2012.

Of her five-year federal prison sentence, Kirsch served about three years and five months, getting a reduced sentence in part for good behavior, the Bureau of Prisons spokesman said.