St. Charles worker charged with ID theft

Police say an Elgin woman used a stolen identity to hold a manufacturing job in St. Charles for eight years.

Teresa Portilla, 37, of the 200 block of Silver Court, was arrested Wednesday at Olcott Plastics in St. Charles and charged with identity theft of between $10,000 to $100,000, a Class 1 felony, authorities said.

St. Charles police spokesman Paul McCurtain said Portilla's identity came into question this week after a Woodstock woman received a letter from the Internal Revenue Service indicating she owed more than $13,000 in taxes from unreported income in 2008. An officer responded to Olcott Plastics and learned Portilla had worked there under the Woodstock woman's name for eight years, McCurtain said.

"We verified her true identity by looking at a prior booking photo from the Elgin Police Department," McCurtain said.

Portilla was initially arrested on a failure to appear in court warrant and was later charged with identity theft. McCurtain said she admitted in interviews to buying the victim's Social Security information in Chicago about 11 years ago.

Portilla was being held in the Kane County jail Thursday on a $9,000 bond. Her next court date is June 9.