Woman arrested for identity theft, scamming Harvard, other universities

TINLEY PARK -- A woman accused of stealing other people's identities and duping some of the country's top universities into admitting her has been arrested in suburban Chicago.

Esther Elizabeth Reed, 29, was arrested on a federal warrant Saturday in Tinley Park, said Malcolm Wiley, spokesman for the Secret Service.

In September, Reed was indicted by a federal grand jury in Greenville, S.C. for mail fraud, wire fraud, false identification documents and aggravated identity theft, according to her profile on the Secret Service Web site.

Reed had attended Columbia University as a graduate student for two years under the name Brooke Henson before investigators discovered she was not who she claimed to be. The real Henson, of Travelers Rest, S.C., has been missing since 1999.

Investigators have said they do not believe Reed had anything to do with Henson's disappearance.

Reed used sophisticated scams to steal other identities to gain entrance to California State University at Fullerton, Harvard and Columbia, where she studied criminology and psychology, investigators said.

Reed used the stolen identities to obtain more than $100,000 in student loans, according to the Secret Service.

Wiley did not know when Reed would next appear in court.