Man meets Kansas woman in Cayman using dead brother’s identity to build an empire
By Tristin Hopper, National Post
Leslie Camick allegedly used a 50-year-old birth certificate to live the life his brother ‘never had the opportunity to enjoy
Seven years ago, Canadian telecommunications engineer Leslie Camick appears to have been ready for a change. He was weighed down by back taxes, behind in child support payments and, thanks to a string of drunk driving charges, unable to drive, according to U.S. federal prosecutors.
So, he allegedly picked up the birth certificate of his dead infant brother Wayne, slipped over the U.S. border, took up with a Kansas woman he first met in the Cayman Islands and settled in to build a multi-million-dollar telecommunications empire.
Next month, in a Wichita courtroom, Leslie “Wayne” Camick is set to go over the details of how it all came crashing down.
For years, Mr. Camick lived a life his brother “never had the opportunity to enjoy,” U.S. prosecutors poetically told a Kansas court hearing in late September, according to a report by The Associated Press.
Wayne B. Camick died at the age 14 weeks in 1958. Starting in 2006, however, the infant’s name suddenly began re-appearing on contracts, immigration forms bank accounts, driver’s licences and patent documents all throughout the United States.
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In 2007, a Wayne B. Camick of Mandeville, Louisiana, patented a device to protect optical cables. In the promotional material for a company making devices to inspect utility poles, telephone engineer Wayne B. Camick praises their accuracy.
At about the same time, a Wayne B. Camick, together with live-in girlfriend Lyn Wattley, were laying the foundations of the Winfield, Kansas-based telecommunications firm KaiTraxx LLC.
By Mr. Camick’s own assertion the company was pulling in $1-million a year in profits by 2008. By 2011, despite the effects of the recession, profits were up to $2.5-million.
But the whole ruse apparently began to unravel in the summer of 2011, when Ms. Wattley, “discovered Camick had had been lying … about his true identity,” according to U.S. authorities quoted in September by AP.
A single terse statement on KaiTraxx’s website records the event thusly: “Lyle ‘Wayne’ Camick was removed from association with this company as of 13th July 2011.”
On Nov. 19, Mr. Camick, 58, now back to using the name Leslie, will answer to a raft of charges, first laid in March, of mail fraud, immigration document fraud, bank fraud, “aggravated” identity theft and even violations of the U.S. Patriot Act.
The post 9/11 U.S. justice system is not inclined to look kindly on foreign nationals assuming false identities, and altogether, Mr. Camick is facing enough charges to put him in jail for the rest of his life.
Mr. Camick’s theory — at least, the one he is trying to prove in civil court — is that Ms. Wattley is “clearly seeking control of Mr. Camick’s assets.”
In a 19-page complaint filed in July, Mr. Camick alleges that he was working with a crew in Arizona in July, 2011, when an irate Ms. Wattley, upset over some earlier “financial disagreements,” suddenly cancelled his cell phone, fuel card and bank card.
She then allegedly reported his GMC truck, which was in her name, had been reported stolen.
The report got Mr. Camick arrested and detained in Deming, New Mexico, although the charges were ultimately dropped when the “alleged victim in the case did not wish to proceed with prosecution,” according to a local media report.
Only two months later, however, Mr. Camick was again arrested in Galloway, New Jersey, for being a “fugitive from justice from Kansas,” according to an official police blotter.
He owed taxes in Canada and was unable to obtain a Canadian passport or other travel documents
This time, immigration authorities became involved, and after four days, Mr. Camick revealed his real name and explained that he had begun using his dead brother’s birth certificate because “he owed taxes in Canada and was unable to obtain a Canadian passport or other travel documents,” according to U.S. sources quoted in federal court documents.
Ultimately, Mr. Camick’s complaint asserts that Ms. Wattley has “given evidence to … have [him] deported so that she could acquire all of his assets.”
Not just KaiTraxx, he notes, but also a patent for a locking manhole cover whose value he estimates at “five billion dollars.”
In July, Mr. Camick’s lawyer attempted to have the federal identity fraud charges lifted on the basis that Mr. Camick “has always gone by” the name Wayne in the United States.
As for the birth certificate, “there is no law that prohibits a brother from having a copy of a family member’s birth certificate in his possession,” reads court documents.
Nevertheless, after noting the sheer volume of official documents Mr. Camick had signed with “Wayne B. Camick,” a judge concluded that he had not adopted the Wayne moniker simply because he liked “the sound of that name.”
“It is notable that Camick has still supplied no innocent explanation for why he has used the false name within the United States,” wrote District of Kansas Justice Thomas Marten.
It is notable that Camick has still supplied no innocent explanation for why he has used the false name within the United States
Mr. Camick reportedly lived in London, Ont., prior to moving to the United States, although he appears to have been a student at the University of Guelph in 1980.
In October of 1999, a Leslie Camick of the same age was also sentenced to six months in jail after he was caught drunk driving near Owen Sound, Ont.
At the time, it was the driver’s fourth impaired driving conviction — and his seventh for driving while disqualified.
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