Bernanke Struck by Identify Theft

By GottaLaff

Bernanke's personal "economy" had its problems, too:

As Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke struggled to hold the economy together last August, he was distracted by a more personal financial problem: He and his wife were victims of identity theft.

Bernanke's brush with the banking system began when a thief stole Anna Bernanke's purse from the back of her chair at a Capitol Hill Starbucks on Aug. 7, 2008, according to court documents and a source close to the Fed chief. Inside were her leather wallet, four credit cards, $5 in cash and her checkbook, a D.C. police report said.

A week later, a $900 check from the couple's Wachovia Bank account was deposited at a Bank of America in Hyattsville.

George Lee Reid of the District was charged in D.C. Superior Court with identity theft in the depositing of the check. The case was later dismissed. But the deposit is now included in charges filed in U.S. District Court in Alexandria against Reid and nine others, part of what prosecutors say was a nationwide identity-theft ring that has caused more than $2.1 million in losses to at least 10 financial institutions.

Kinda makes you wonder, who'd really want to be Bernanke?