The Best American Crime Reporting 2009 Page 10

  THEY HAD CROSSED PATHS one night in September when Ed was out drinking in downtown Philadelphia. One glance at Jocelyn, and Ed was toast. Jocelyn was smitten as well. The next day she told Sallie Cook, “Oh, my God, I met this guy last night, he’s sooo hot!” She then ran down his vitals: tall and dark-haired like Verdibello, but better-groomed, worked in finance, and, best of all, he told her he made $115,000 a year.

  From the beginning, the two were always publicly making out, broadcasting their relationship to the world. Everyone noticed them, which provided the kind of attention Jocelyn had come to expect, but it was a new experience for Ed. In the light of Jocelyn’s affections, Ed had turned into a somebody: important and successful. And as malleable as Jocelyn’s personality was, Ed’s proved to be just as plastic. He became Jocelyn’s perfect sidekick, a cocky braggart who always mentioned his Ivy League education and his supposed six-figure salary (double what he actually made). Ed embraced Jocelyn’s flirtatiousness, too. At clubs, they’d split up to hit on strangers, watching each other’s progress from across the bar—a game Jocelyn initiated for the sexy fun of it.

  Jocelyn already had a boyfriend, of course. Ed had discovered that fact one embarrassing morning when he’d come over for brunch and Verdibello had opened the door in his boxers. (Ed had just stood there frozen, clutching a bottle of Simply Orange, while Jocelyn worked her mentalist magic on both men.) But Ed divined the quickest path to her heart: He made sure he was always pulling out his wallet and that everyone noticed his largesse. Together Ed and Jocelyn made a striking—and strikingly shallow—pair.

  Three months after they met, Jocelyn and Ed departed for a New Year’s trip to Paris. Other travelers their age might have been backpacking, but these two spent their vacation in four-and five-star hotels, shopping at Gucci and skiing the French alpine slopes. They dressed for maximum impact: Jocelyn’s wardrobe included a rabbit-fur vest, red thigh-high boots and a crotch-length strand of pearls; Ed held his own in lavender button-downs and a leather man-purse. They snapped dozens of photos, which Jocelyn posted on Facebook (to the shock and heartbreak of both Verdibello and Thomas, who each thought he was dating Jocelyn exclusively). And the pair brought home a souvenir: a sign they’d swiped from a cafe, warning PROFESSIONAL BAG THIEVES OPERATE IN THIS AREA, PLEASE KEEP A CLOSE EYE ON YOUR PERSONAL BELONGINGS AT ALL TIMES.

  Their year of living fabulously had begun.

  ED AND JOCELYN SWIFTLY MORPHED into nouveau-riche brats, intent upon getting the things they wanted—no, deserved. Like their new two-bedroom apartment in the Belgravia, a grand building owned by Ed’s company. Their third-floor pad was a huge, high-ceilinged affair, decorated in ultramodern style with black lacquer and chrome furniture. Jocelyn’s walk-in closet was strewn with designer clothes; in Ed’s closet, everything was neatly pressed and hung. They used their second bedroom as an office—stocked with four computers, two printers, a scanner and, most curiously, an industrial machine for manufacturing ID cards. And squirreled away in their apartment was a lockbox filled with keys to many of their neighbors’ apartments and to all of their mailboxes (“Is the mail here yet?” they’d ask at the front desk); police suspect that Ed managed to procure the keys through his company, since it owned the building.

  Their crimes seem to have begun fairly early. “These two have only been together since September ’06,” says Detective Sweeney, noting that they were arrested a little over a year later. “So they managed to do a lot in that short time. Which tells me this was a perfect meeting of the minds.” The police say that while neighbors were out, the pair would sneak into their apartments and steal their Social Security numbers, driver’s license numbers, bank-account info and, in one case, a passport. Then they’d open credit cards and bank accounts in their victims’ names, supplying a mailing address on the Penn campus—really a UPS Store, where the apartment number they’d listed (“Apt. 124”) was a PO box. As a finishing touch, they made phony driver’s licenses, using as a guide an article Ed clipped from Penn’s student newspaper titled “How to Spot Fake IDs.”

  They also had Spector spyware—software that, once installed on their neighbors’ computers, they may have used to glean confidential information. When police had disconnected the pair’s computers, the entire building’s Internet access crashed—the police suspect that the tech-savvy Ed rigged everyone’s Internet accounts to run through his own computer.

  Neighbors weren’t the only ones at risk. Morgan Greenhouse, an ’07 Penn grad, still has no clue how her identity was stolen—only that one day a credit-card company called to verify a check she’d written to herself for several thousand dollars. “I freaked out,” she says. Panicked, she checked her credit online and discovered seven unauthorized credit cards, many nearly maxed out to their $2,000 or $3,000 limit.

  But while some of the couple’s capers seemed well-planned, others were stupidly obvious—including preying on their own friends. In the summer of 2007, the pair reportedly spent a weekend in Manhattan crashing with a Penn buddy of Ed’s. Weeks later, the guy and his roommate filed a report with the NYPD, claiming $3,000 in fraudulent charges. Even Sallie Cook, Jocelyn’s friend from Drexel, says she was fleeced, though in a decidedly low-tech way: Shortly after Jocelyn watched Cook punch her PIN number into a cash machine, Cook’s debit card disappeared, and $600 was withdrawn from her account.

  “I called Jocelyn to tell her what happened,” Cook remembers. “And she was like, ‘Ohhh, you called the police? Umm, well, I have your debit card here…. It’s the same color as mine…. I must have accidentally used yours, and I guess our PIN numbers are the same!’” (Cook filed a police report but then let the matter drop.)

  The incident didn’t seem to bother Jocelyn. She was disengaging from campus anyhow, once again shucking her old life for a better one. She and Ed were always flying off somewhere—London, Montreal, Florida, Hawaii—and posting the proof online. At home she and Ed were attending black-tie events, appearing in Philadelphia magazine’s society pages, laughing and cuddling, Jocelyn’s black bra peeking from under her leopard-print dress. They became fixtures at the hookah bar Byblos, where Jocelyn would come in wearing a bustier and a miniskirt, then spend the night getting hammered, dancing on tables and vamping it up with a hookah pipe between her lips—all while photographing herself and Ed, who’d be nibbling on her neck.

  Other criminals might have made themselves inconspicuous, but for Jocelyn and Ed, conspicuousness was the point. The high life didn’t mean squat unless people were watching, envying, validating them. They went about their glamorous lives as if there was nothing else to life, nothing beyond the acquisition and flaunting of goods—and in that they were true believers.

  In July 2007, they took a long weekend at Turks and Caicos’ ritzy Regent Palms resort and made spectacles of themselves. “Especially her,” says a patron. “She worked it.” Sunning by the infinity pool in matching red bathing suits, while hotel staff fluffed their towels and misted them with water, Ed and Jocelyn were in their element: Ed chatted with other guests about his favorite Philly restaurants while Jocelyn basked silently behind silver aviators, looking utterly content.

  “Take our picture?” Jocelyn asked a couple lounging beside them. Ed and Jocelyn stood at the pool’s edge, wrapping their arms around each other, and smiled.

  OCCASIONALLY, reality intruded in unpleasant ways—like when Ed brought Jocelyn home to meet his parents. Jocelyn barely masked her distaste for their home and provincial sensibilities. At a gathering of family and friends, Jocelyn refused to play their board games, choosing instead to sit at Ed’s elbow, sipping wine while everyone else drank soda, her blouse undone a few buttons too many, her face arranged in a careful, lipsticked smile. “She made us feel like she was the outsider watching us do our silly things,” remembers Ed’s friend Danielle Newton. “It was uncomfortable.”

  Back at home, the couple also had the minor inconvenience of shoehorning their “real” lives into their jet-set schedules. Jocelyn had
now declared a major in international studies, telling people she hoped to become a U.N. ambassador. Decked out in fur and stiletto boots, Jocelyn continued attending her classes, where she dominated the discussion in her assertive, know-it-all tone. But she showed so much promise, in fact, that a professor helped place her on a panel discussion on the Penn campus about globalization—where she sat near special guest Prince Charles.

  “Hi, my name is Jocelyn Kirsch,” she introduced herself, as the crowd and Britain’s future heir to the throne looked on. “I’m originally from Vilna, Lithuania.” She went on to speak eloquently about the way globalization is stratifying societies around the world.

  Ed, on the other hand, wasn’t faring so well. His boss had taken one look at Ed’s tan, after the couple’s return from Turks and Caicos, realized the “sick days” had been bogus, and fired him. All the things Ed had worked for had fallen apart, leaving nothing but the sham.

  Ed told few people about his unemployed status. Instead, he and Jocelyn kept up appearances, going harder than ever. Jocelyn planned a birthday party for Ed, reserving a table for ten at Tinto, one of the most exclusive restaurants in town; afterward, they were going to vacation in Morocco. They had enough cash to get by—stowed in their apartment was $17,500 rubber-banded in stacks. Meanwhile, Ed’s world had narrowed to just one person, and he now ministered to Jocelyn’s every need. He fetched her lunches. He came with her to class, even reportedly taking an economics midterm for her. And he accompanied her on errands—like when, in November 2007, she treated herself to hair extensions. It was an indulgence the couple would regret.

  HAIRDRESSER JEN BISICCHIA STARED furiously at two bogus checks from Tacoma, Washington. She had finished weaving in “Morgan Greenhouse’s” extensions, ending a seven-hour appointment. Morgan had been pleased with the results; she’d stared at her reflection with approval as she reapplied her makeup. Then she’d flashed a Georgia driver’s license and got out of there fast, leaving behind $1,900 in what Bisicchia assumed were phony checks—since it made little sense that a girl from Georgia would have a Tacoma bank account. Just then the phone rang. It was a woman calling to find out why she’d been charged $500 a week earlier.

  “Oh, my God!” Jen Bisicchia shouted; the charge had been “Morgan’s” deposit. The victim told Bisicchia her tale: She had just moved to Philly—as it turned out, across the hall from Jocelyn and Ed—and weeks later various credit-card companies notified her of a batch of new accounts in her name. She told Bisicchia that the thieves had been using a West Philly mailing address.

  That’s all Bisicchia needed to hear. She jumped in her car and found the UPS Store. Then she started calling the cell number “Morgan” had left with the salon. She dialed all night until, at 11:30 p.m., a man picked up.

  “Is Morgan there?” Bisicchia asked.

  “Uh, she’s not available.”

  “Oh, is this Mr. Greenhouse?” she said. Bisicchia told the guy that Morgan had left her textbook behind. “You can come by tomorrow and pick it up. Or I could drop it off to you,” she suggested. The man offered to meet her at a Starbucks. “I don’t feel comfortable giving Morgan’s book to someone that’s not Morgan,” Bisicchia said, enjoying herself now. “But you know what’s funny? Her name’s not Morgan! And I know what’s going on, and I want my money.” The man hung up.

  At 3:30 that morning, Bisicchia received a text message—from Morgan. It read:

  “Hello Jen Bisicchia. You don’t know my name but I know yours. I also know ur nice place on wolf st and how u get home at night. youre the one who should be worried…you seem like a smart girl, walk away now or you will regret it.”

  Shaken, Bisicchia turned the message over to the police the next morning. Things unfolded quickly from there. The police discovered a package of lingerie waiting for Box 124 at the UPS Store, addressed to the across-the-hall victim. So the police sat back. Explains Detective Sweeney, “There was a chance these two idiots might come back and pick up the stuff.” Which they did later that same morning, pushing through the glass doors, Jocelyn wearing a red beret, though with tired rings beneath her eyes, then waiting patiently while the clerk pretended to have trouble locating their package. And there beside the packing-tape display, Jocelyn Kirsch and Edward Anderton’s joy ride came to an end.

  Even after her arrest, Jocelyn clung to her fictions as long as she could. In a holding cell, her mascara smeared from crying, she tucked her long locks into her collar and insisted it was her real hair—no way could she be the hair-extension thief. Police had to call in a stylist to fish around in her hair and confirm its fakeness, while Jocelyn sat stunned, her huge violet eyes open wide. It wasn’t until after her mug shot that she removed her colored contacts, revealing the brown irises underneath.

  JOCELYN AND ED’S TALE could end only one way: with their parents bailing them out of jail. Despite prosecutors’ arguments that the pair posed a flight risk, Ed and Jocelyn were released into the custody of their families. Ed is now sulking in his childhood bedroom in Washington, while Jocelyn is holed up at her mom’s Marin County house. Their first court date is scheduled for May 12th. They hope to negotiate a plea deal.

  Jail seems a certainty for the duo, given the laundry list of criminal charges, including identity theft, terroristic threats, conspiracy and unlawful use of a computer. If convicted on all counts, Ed and Jocelyn could face decades in prison. So far, the police have turned up five alleged victims, and estimate the crime spree at $100,000. But the investigation is expected to turn up more victims and money. And now that the FBI is looking into the case, federal charges loom on the horizon.

  Today Jocelyn is semifamous—though, perhaps, not in the way she’d hoped. When she plunged through the reporters outside the courthouse, she pulled her hoodie over her face; Ed snuck out a back door. Jocelyn’s friends, meanwhile, rushed to exact revenge on the woman who had been a source of fascination and resentment. One Drexel classmate put up a vitriolic Facebook page: “She goin’ to jaaail!” And they wasted no time trashing Jocelyn in the media. Chief among her detractors was Sallie Cook, who, moments after hearing of Jocelyn’s arrest, texted her, “How was jail?”

  The only words from Jocelyn herself have been meek e-mails to her soldier-boyfriend, Thomas, apologizing for any embarrassment she caused. “From her tone, she’s hurting,” Thomas says. As for Ed, he can’t stop crying. “He’s disgusted with himself,” says Newton.

  Still, someone as resourceful as Jocelyn could use this as a launching point, and parlay the whole episode into—who knows?—a nude magazine spread, maybe a reality-TV show. Jocelyn can dream. This is, after all, not just the land of second acts. It’s a land in which notoriety and celebrity are one and the same. Where, with a little ingenuity, a woman with looks, brains and a rap sheet can really cash in. And speaking of cashing in:

  “Dr. Phil is flying me out for a taping,” says Sallie Cook, taking a pull off her three-foot hookah. “The media coverage is insane.” She’s sitting in her Marlton, New Jersey, living room, her fifty-inch TV tuned to Jerry Springer while she looks through her trove of Jocelyn photos—all of which have suddenly become valuable. “Ugh, look at this one, what a slut!” she says.

  Cook’s no dope; she’s hoping to turn this into something more tangible. “My agent’s telling me we can get, like, $5,000 a picture!” she says. “They can get me, like, fifty grand!” Her eyes twinkle at the prospect, and the sheer unending possibility of it all.

  SABRINA RUBIN ERDELY is a freelance journalist living in Philadelphia. She is a regular contributor to Rolling Stone, a contributing editor at SELF, and a writer-at-large at Philadelphia magazine; her work has also appeared in GQ, The New Yorker, Reader’s Digest, and Mother Jones. She has earned many awards for her feature writing and reporting, including a National Magazine Award nomination. Her writing previously appeared in Best American Crime Writing 2003.

  Coda

  This story had everything a reporter could want—a terrific narrative, a larger
-than-life character, loads of sexy details—and was great fun to work on. But what drew me to this story was the commentary it offered on our times. Jocelyn and Ed’s lust for the high life spoke to America’s culture of runaway materialism, and to the perverse degree to which we feel validated by our purchases. Their sense of entitlement, and their dedication to living beyond their means, wasn’t far removed from the values so many of us shared by the close of the go-go free-market experiment of the Bush era. In some ways, Jocelyn and Ed’s caper was a last (criminal) hurrah for that gluttonous consumer culture, before we plunged into the current recession.

  The feds took over “Bonnie and Clyde’s” case. Ed Anderton pleaded guilty and was sentenced to four years. He’d spent his time out on bail working as a landscaper, putting his earnings toward the restitution he now owes. In his appearance before the judge, Ed looked like a man still shocked at what he’d discovered himself capable of. I’m told Ed has cut off contact with Jocelyn, a rejection she finds crushing.

  As for Jocelyn Kirsch, her story just got weirder—because, while out on bail and working as a Starbucks barista, she had continued in her theatrical, outrageous crimes. She was accused of stealing a coworker’s credit card, which she used for a spree at Ikea and a drugstore. The Marin County DA’s office charged Jocelyn with making a phony 911 call to report screams coming from her mom and stepdad’s house. One day Jocelyn strolled into a local bike shop and asked to test-drive a two-thousand-dollar bicycle, leaving her car keys as collateral; she never returned, and naturally her keys didn’t open any cars in the lot.