04/26/2006

Alleged prankster pleads

He's accused of making obscene calls to TV anchors

CADILLAC (AP) — A former bank employee in Indiana, accused of using customers' personal information to make obscene phone calls to television news anchors, has pleaded no contest to a charge of attempted identity theft.

Marco Antonio Munoz, 39, entered the plea Monday in Wexford County Circuit Court. A no-contest plea in Michigan is not an admission of guilt but is treated as such for sentencing purposes.

Munoz could receive up to 2½ years in prison. Bond was revoked after he entered his plea.

Charges of identity theft and malicious use of a telecommunications device were dropped. Similar charges are pending in Grand Rapids, where a preliminary hearing is scheduled for Thursday.

Police are investigating in Louisville, Ky., and in Evansville, Ind., where Munoz lived and where authorities say he used his position at Fifth Third Bank to obtain the customers' information.

Police say Munoz accessed hundreds of bank accounts, mostly targeting women and television news anchors.

Police in Michigan began investigating when an anchor from WWTV-WWUP in Cadillac reported receiving one of the calls.

Munoz also is accused of making calls to news anchors in Grand Rapids and at WPBN-WTOM in Traverse City, Herweyer said. The calls started four years ago and were made from Ohio, Illinois, Texas and other states, he said.

"We still got him on a two-and-a-half year felony, and the good thing about it is we automatically get his DNA," Detective Sgt. Jeff Herweyer of the Michigan State Police post in Cadillac told the Cadillac News.

The DNA information can be added to a national database, Herweyer said, adding that he had been contacted by police investigating similar cases elsewhere in the Midwest.

See related story:

• Man accused of harassing women - April 12, 2006