“Clyde” gets 48 months

Edward K. Anderton, the honor student and University of Pennsylvania economics grad whose life was consumed by his romantic and criminal partnership with his girlfriend, was sentenced this afternoon to 48 months in prison by a federal judge.

Anderton, 25, made an emotional, self-abasing 20-minutes statement to the judge in which he apologized to his victims, his parents and family, and others that he said his conduct harmed.

Among those he apologized to was co-defendant Jocelyn Kirsch. "To a large part I was her downfall. If the two of us hadn't met I don't think that any of her crimes would have escalated to that point," Anderton said.

His tumultuous year-long romance with Jocelyn Kirsch, 23, led to their being popularly nicknamed "Bonnie and Clyde."

Anderton said his economics education meant he knew that what he was doing was wrong: "I knew it was wrong then, and I do now."

He was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Eduardo C. Robreno.

Kirsch, 23, was sentenced Oct. 17 by Robreno to five years in prison. She is currently in the federal prison Transfer Center in Oklahoma City, Okla. awaiting a permanent prison designation.

Both Anderton and Kirsch pleaded guilty to federal charges including conspiracy, bank and credit card fraud and money laundering involving an identity-theft fueled crime spree.

Authorities say the pair stole financial information from up to 50 friends, neighbors and co-workers, obtaining more than $116,000 and spending it on international travel and high living.

Kirsch arrived in Philadelphia in September 2003 to begin college at Drexel University. A child of affluence - her father a plastic surgeon and her mother a nurse - she grew up in Winston-Salem, N.C., and later lived near San Francisco with her mother after her parents divorced.

Kirsch and Anderton met in September 2006. Anderton, a native of Everett, Wash., had graduated in 2005 with an economics degree from Penn and was working as a financial analyst for Lubert-Adler, which developed the Belgravia condos off Rittenhouse Square, where the couple began living together.

Kirsch, who had a history of retail theft, and Anderton soon began a career in identity theft, a career advanced by Anderton's access to keys to the apartments of the Belgravia's upscale residents.

For a year the pair traveled on other peoples money to Paris, the Caribbean, Miami and other resort sites, all the while documenting their fun on camera - photos that would ultimately wind up on the Internet guaranteeing them international notoriety.

The fantasy ended last Nov. 30 when Philadelphia police arrested the pair as they went to pick up a package of imported lingerie at a UPS store on Spruce Street near 37th Street.

Police said that one of the pair's victims had contacted them about a credit card she never requested and notification that a package was awaiting her at the UPS store.

When police searched the couple's Belgravia apartment they found thousands in cash, dozens of phony driver's licenses and credit cards in a variety of names, as well as a kit for picking locks, computer software used in identity theft and a machine for printing identification cards.

Defense attorney Lawrence S. Krasner had urged Robreno to impose a lesser sentence on Anderton. Krasner argued that his criminal conduct lasted only as long as the relationship with emotionally troubled Kirsch, who was subsequently arrested on fraud charges while on bail.

In a sentencing memorandum filed this month, Krasner wrote that Anderton has worked since his guilty plea saving money to pay victim restitution.

"Mr. Anderton does not blame Ms. Kirsch: he asserts that he is equally culpable with Ms. Kirsch for his part in the conspiracy," Krasner wrote. "Yet the conclusion that the relationship between Ms. Kirsch and Mr. Anderton was toxic is inescapable and is evidence that Mr. Anderton's permanently ending that relationship will be a positive factor in his rehabilitation."

Assistant U.S. Attorney Louis D. Lappen filed a sentencing memo urging Robreno to imposed a sentence within the federal sentencing guideline range of 57 to 65 months.

While crediting Anderton's decision to plead guilty and accept responsibility for his criminal conduct, Lappen wrote that Anderton comes from an upper-middle-class background, graduated from high school with a 3.99 grade point average and earned a bachelor's degree in economics from the University of Pennsylvania.

"The government recognizes that this is a highly impressive background that one does not regularly see in the criminal justice system," Lappen wrote. "It is also obvious that Anderton did not need to steal to support himself as he had an excellent job and tremendous potential for success. Put simply, Anderton should have known better."