Watch CBS News

Woman Looking Up Family Tree Discovers Man Has Been Using Dead Baby's Identity For Decades

LANSDALE, Pa. (CBS) -- The feds say a Lansdale man has been using a dead person's identity for more than 21 years.

Authorities got involved after a relative of the deceased used Ancestry.com to put her family tree together.

A woman was getting information on Ancestry last year and her nephew Nathan Laskoski popped up. She saw he got married and he moved around the country, from Texas, to Mississippi, to Tennessee and eventually Pennsylvania.

But the problem is Laskoski died in 1972 when he was just two months old.

Authorities say 44-year-old Jon Vincent, back in 1996, escaped from a halfway house in Texas, went to a cemetery to find someone born around the same time he was.

Prosecutors say he picked Laskoski and found his birth certificate, which he used to get a social security number.

Authorities say that started 20-plus years of jobs, bank accounts, loans, marriage and divorce as Nathan Laskoski.

Vincent faces identity theft and social security fraud charges. If convicted he's looking at fines of up to half-a-million dollars and a lot of time in jail.

View CBS News In
CBS News App Open
Chrome Safari Continue
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.