Hawaii man stole
identity of dead
Californian for yearsRobert Sohnrey got disability
benefits and avoided child support
In typical cases of identity theft, the bad guy assumes a new identity to score quick financial gains, usually forging checks or making illegal credit-card purchases over a short period. The thief then abandons the ruse to reduce the chance of getting caught.
Honolulu resident Robert E.M. Sohnrey isn't your typical identity thief.
He so embraced his stolen persona that he remarried his wife using his bogus moniker and named their son after a brother of the dead man whose identity he stole.
Sohnrey created such an elaborate hoax that for eight years he evaded authorities seeking his arrest and succeeded in obtaining a passport, California and Hawaii driver's licenses, a Social Security card and other government documentation, all using the dead San Francisco man's name.
By adopting Edward B. Cook's identity so thoroughly, Sohnrey avoided paying nearly $200,000 in child support payments for nine years and collected roughly $70,000 in federal disability benefits that Cook would have received -- had Cook been alive.
Sohnrey also started a Hawaii business, rented a Honolulu apartment, held the presidency of a local trade group, opened bank accounts and traveled abroad using his alias. Even more amazing, Sohnrey actually paid outstanding bills of the dead man so Sohnrey, as the impostor, would have a better credit rating.
The hoax was so intricate and prolonged that one federal law enforcement officer said it would make a good plot for a movie.
"This guy really had to work to put together Ed's life like that," said Andrew Raskopf, 49, who was Cook's domestic partner for seven years.
But just like in the movies, the good guys in this bizarre drama prevailed in the end.
Sohnrey's downfall was that he worked briefly several years ago using Cook's name. Otherwise, officials concede, Sohnrey might not have been caught.
The modest income he earned as a pearl appraiser was reported under Cook's name to the federal government, drawing the attention of the Social Security Administration, which had been sending him monthly disability payments.
That red flag gradually led to a multiagency federal investigation that culminated in Sohnrey's indictment in November. Last month, he pleaded guilty to Social Security fraud, identification theft, passport fraud and failure to pay child support. He is being held in the federal jail in Honolulu awaiting an Oct. 4 sentencing.
Sohnrey, 49, faces up to 32 years in prison and tens of thousands of dollars in fines.
His attorney, assistant federal public defender William Domingo, declined comment for this story, citing the pending sentencing.
That Sohnrey was able to lead a life of fraud for so long, systematically hoodwinking multiple government agencies, underscores the seriousness of identity theft, a growing and costly problem in Hawaii. It also illustrates how such frauds can easily encompass a web of victims far and wide.
"It has to be a traumatic experience for a person to receive a phone call and be told that a total stranger has stolen the identity of a deceased love one to commit crimes," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Tracy Hino, who prosecuted Sohnrey.
"In today's world, we all know how ID theft can victimize people and businesses financially. ... This case illustrates how ID theft can victimize people in other ways besides just their pocketbooks."
The 5-foot-11, 215-pound Sohnrey began taking on the identity of the 5-foot-11, 155-pound Cook in 1994, shortly after Cook's death in July of that year. The deceased was about two years younger than Sohnrey.
Investigators believe Sohnrey selected Cook's identity after seeing an obituary for the former schoolteacher and health-care worker that ran in a San Francisco weekly newspaper.
By the end of 1994, he had obtained a California driver's license and identification card, and had established billing accounts with department stores and the University of California under Cook's name, according to court records.
As the fraud grew, Sohnrey decided to leave California. In late 1994, he and his wife, an immigrant from Malaysia, moved to Honolulu, where Sohnrey began to more completely assume Cook's identity, the records show. He obtained a new driver's license, identification card, Social Security card and passport, opened a bank account, established a mailbox drop and rented an apartment, all under Cook's name.
He also was able to persuade the federal government to resume paying Cook's Social Security disability benefits of up to $692 a month -- even though Cook had died the previous year. To prove that Cook was still alive, Sohnrey mailed the federal government a Hawaii ID card, which had Sohnrey's picture but Cook's name and Social Security number. That apparently did the trick.
As Sohnrey settled into his new identity in Honolulu, he still had one major tie to his previous life: his marriage. In 1997, he attempted to address that problem.
His wife filed for divorce in February 1997 and Sohnrey didn't contest it, according to court records. Two months later, however, the couple remarried, only this time Sohnrey used his Cook alias, the records show.
A week after Sohnrey was indicted in November, the wife, 45, filed for divorce again.
The wife, who has not been charged in the case, and her attorney did not respond to requests for comment.
It's not clear from the public record whether Sohnrey's wife knew about his life of fraud, although she appears to have contributed to it, providing inaccurate information in the divorce records. In her 1997 filing, for instance, she indicated the couple had no children, even though their son had been born two years earlier and was named after one of Cook's brothers, according to the documents and information disclosed at a court hearing.
She also benefited from the identity scheme when, according to one document, she became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2003 based on her marriage to the impostor Cook.
A friend of the wife, however, told the Star-Bulletin that she was duped by Sohnrey.
"She's never done anything wrong in her life," the friend said. "She listens to what her husband tells her to do."
Hino would not comment on whether the wife was under investigation.
About the same time Sohnrey's son was born in 1995 in Honolulu, an arrest warrant in California was issued for him for failing to pay thousands of dollars in child support for two children from a previous marriage. By the time authorities arrested him late last year, he owed roughly $195,000.
To several neighbors in the mid-rise Honolulu apartment building where Sohnrey and his family lived since 1997, news of his nearly decade-long fraud came as a surprise. They said he never talked about his past.
"He was very reserved in his manner, a very quiet person," said one sixth-floor neighbor who asked not to be named.
But when he was around gemologists, or people who study gems, Sohnrey became a different person. Gems -- pearls in particular -- were his passion. He even formed a local pearl appraisal business in 1996, using his Cook alias.
One fellow gemologist said the man he knew as Ed Cook would tell boastful tales of his past, including one about his grandfather as a pearl farmer in Mississippi.
"He told me some pretty far-fetched things," Karl Nakamura said. "He said things I had a hard time believing."
Under Cook's name, Sohnrey served as president of the Honolulu chapter of the Gemological Institute of America's alumni association for several years, a position that seems at odds with the low-profile, reserved demeanor others spoke of. Nakamura succeeded him about two years ago.
Before moving to Hawaii, Sohnrey served in the military and then worked on ships at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard in Northern California for more than a decade.
Adding even more intrigue to his life story, Sohnrey's name shows up on a Vietnam veterans Web site where people post messages trying to locate those who served in Vietnam.
In one undated posting, someone identifying himself as Douglas Wayne Sohnrey, Robert's brother, says Robert has been missing for nine years and suffers from post-traumatic stress syndrome. He mentions the Mare Island job and describes Robert as a martial arts expert, speaker of four languages and holder of a top-secret clearance from the government.
"I have a family now, and I tell my kids of their uncle and what a good man he is," the posting says.
Sohnrey, a California native, does have a brother named Douglas, according to California birth records. But the Star-Bulletin could not locate him.
As the fraud investigation intensified last year, Sohnrey apparently knew something was up. Still maintaining his Cook persona, he wrote Social Security officials and told them he was accepting a job abroad and that they should discontinue his disability benefits effective May 2003.
Unbeknownst to Sohnrey at the time, the agency already had put a stop to his payments as authorities started closing in on him. When they executed a search warrant at his apartment later in the year, they found a newspaper clipping on the growing problem of identity theft. Highlighted in a sidebar: tips on preventing such theft.
Raskopf said his partner, if he were alive today, would be bemused by Sohnrey's fraud and how he was able to carry it out for so many years.
"Ed loved a good mystery," Raskopf said. "He would've loved this. He would've just sat back and got the biggest kick out of it."
Anatomy of a fraud
June 1993: California resident Robert E.M. Sohnrey's marriage ends; court orders him to pay $1,886 in monthly child support.
Feb. 1994: Sohnrey marries Malaysian immigrant.
April 1994: Sohnrey stops paying child support.
July 1994: Edward B. Cook dies in San Francisco.
Aug. 1994: Sohnrey obtains California driver's license using Cook's name.
Summer/fall 1994: Sohnrey and wife move to Hawaii.
Jan. 1995: Sohnrey begins acquiring Hawaii identification documents using Cook's name.
Feb. 1995: Sohnrey persuades Social Security Administration to resume monthly disability benefits for Cook.
March 1995: Sohnrey's son is born; he is named after brother of deceased Cook.
Sept. 1995: California issues warrant for Sohnrey's arrest for failing to pay child support.
Feb. 1997: Sohnrey's wife files for divorce.
April 1997: Sohnrey remarries wife, using Cook alias.
Sept. 2000: SSA raises questions about impostor Cook's earnings from an earlier job.
Jan. 2003: Sohnrey's wife becomes naturalized U.S. citizen based on marriage to impostor Cook.
Feb. 2003: SSA suspends disability payments to impostor Cook.
Nov. 2003: Sohnrey indicted on multiple charges, including identity theft.
Dec. 2003: Sohnrey pleads guilty.
Source: Court documents
