Bail hiked, new charges for ‘Bonnie and Clyde’

A preliminary hearing was postponed this morning for the pair dubbed the "Bonnie and Clyde" of ID fraud.

Investigators say Jocelyn Kirsch, 22, and Edward Anderton, 25, raised cash for a globe-trotting lifestyle by stealing identities, some of them from neighbors in their Center City condo. They had been free on bail after being arrested Friday on charges including forgery, identity theft, and unlawful use of a computer.

Attorneys this morning were to make arrangements for their clients to go home with their parents as soon as possible after new bail was posted. Kirsch is expected to return to North Carolina with her father. Her mother lives in California.

Anderton will return to Washington state and live with his parents.

They will return to Philadelphia no later than February for a preliminary hearing.

Three more charges have been added to the original complaint: burglary, criminal trespass and criminal conspiracy to commit burglary.

As a result of the new charges, Municipal Court Judge Thomas Gehret also increased the bail by $50,000 for each, despite objections by Anderton's attorney, Larry Krasner who said "to his parents this is a lot of money."

"His father works for a newspaper and he goes to work in a baseball cap and blue jeans," Krasner said later at a bail hearing.

At issue was where the suspects would be staying because they are being kicked out of their current quarters, and their parents live out of state.

Kirsch asked to return to California with her mother, Jessica Kirsch. Her father, Lee Kirsch, is a plastic surgeon from Winston-Salem, N.C. Both parents were in court this morning.

Kirsch, a senior at Drexel University, was suspended by the university today.

After the hearing before Gehret, Kirsch and Anderton then faced a second hearing this morning regarding their bail. Both appeared on a monitor as they faced bail commissioner Dwain Hill and prosecutor Mark Winter.

With the new charges the total bail for Anderton - who had been out on bail until turning himself in yesterday - is $130,000. Kirsch's bail is now $85,000.

Ronald Greenblatt, Kirsch's lawyer, said he was making arrangements to have his client released on bail today.

"Jocelyn, I'll be down there," Greenblatt told his client this morning.

Similar arrangements were being made by Anderton's lawyer. Anderton's parents - Lori and Kyle Anderton - were also present at today's hearing.

Krasner, Anderton's lawyer, said at the end of the bail hearing: "Mr. Anderton, your folks are going to try to make bail as soon a possible."

The case has captured attention far and wide - or at least Kirsch has.

The couple's travels to such places as Hawaii, Paris, and the Turks and Caicos Islands apparently inspired the actress in Kirsch. She seems to have struck enough coquettish poses to hold observers' interest for days.

Her boyfriend, a 2005 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania whom she calls Eddie, has been looking duller by the day. So much so that it prompted one reporter to ask an investigator whether Kirsch may have led Anderton astray.

"No," Detective Terry Sweeney responded emphatically. "It was a meeting of the minds."

Still, as the media teams huddled together in the cold outside the Central Detective Division yesterday, it was Kirsch they truly wanted to see. But they were out of luck. Neither half of the couple followed the schedule handed down by police: 4 p.m. surrender at Central Detectives.

Kirsch, concealed in a heavy parka, slipped into Police Headquarters, at Eighth and Race Streets, shortly before 4 p.m. yesterday. Anderton was a surprise drop-in at the Fourth Police District, at 11th and Wharton Streets, about 30 minutes later. Police transported him to Central Detectives.

"We called the D.A.'s Office because we read the press clips that there were going to be other charges," Greenblatt said as he left headquarters.

When asked by a reporter whether Kirsch was conceding that she had stolen identities, Greenblatt nodded slightly.

"People do this," he said. "They lose their center. It is usually not people who go to Penn or Drexel."

Kirsch's and Anderton's legal troubles may be just beginning. They still could face federal charges.

"We have been talking with the Philadelphia Police Department and with the Attorney General's Office," FBI spokeswoman Jerri Williams said yesterday. A decision on whether to file federal charges could come as early as late this week, she said.

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