Teen gets probation for credit card thefts

A Wheeling teenager will spend the next 30 months on felony probation after he pleaded guilty to skimming credit card information from Home Depot shoppers last December.

Siamion Kuzmin, of the 200 block of Woodmere Lane, was sentenced Tuesday in a Rolling Meadows courtroom after pleading guilty to five counts of identity theft. The sentence includes one year intensive supervision probation, which requires the defendant submit to drug testing, a curfew, increased surveillance and frequent reporting to the probation department.

Cook County Judge Thomas Fecarotta also ordered Kuzmin to pay more than $13,700 in restitution to the victims, whose credit card information he stole while working as a cashier at a Mount Prospect Home Depot.

"You make sure you pay your victims what you stole from them," said Fecarotta, adding that Kuzmin's failure to pay in full by the end of his probation period will land him in prison.

The thefts took place between December 14 and 20, 2008, said Cook County assistant state's attorney Maryanne Mlikotic of the special prosecutions bureau.

The 19-year-old used a small, electronic device known as a skimmer to swipe information from customers' credit cards, she said.

Police believe as many as 60 customers may have been victimized. The crimes came to light when a credit card company representative suspected something was amiss and contacted the store. Store managers then contacted Mount Prospect police. Kuzmin's crimes were caught on videotape and he later gave a statement admitting the same, police said.

In pronouncing his sentence, Fecarotta impressed upon the defendant the seriousness of this kind of probation.

"I consider intensive probation one foot in the penitentiary door," Fecarotta said. "Your lawyer has convinced me to give you a break because of your age, but it's not leniency. ISP isn't easy."