Mystery woman with no fingerprints is a disbarred lawyer, police say
A mystery woman accused of using a fake birth certificate to obtain a state ID card in Ohio has been identified as a disbarred lawyer from Virginia.
Police say Ann Marie Miller, 40, had apparently burned her fingertips so she couldn’t be identified, according to the Lima News. She gave a fake name—Julia Wadsworth—to police, who were able to identify her after a Florida tipster saw news coverage and photos, according to Sheriff Sam Crish of Allen County, Ohio.
The Florida media picked up the story because detectives believed the mystery woman cared for an elderly man there before moving to Lima, where she cared for a 95-year-old woman. The Fort Myers News-Press and Reuters also have coverage.
Crish told the News-Press he believed that Miller tried to removed her fingerprints so she could start a new life. He told Reuters her fingers had “no ridge detail whatsoever. Just smooth, like a baby’s butt.”
Miller faces stalking and other charges in Virginia related to a love triangle with a male attorney and a female paralegal, Crish said. She also faces multiple charges in Colorado, including burglary, trespassing and felony cultivation of marijuana.
Virginia lawyer Jeffrey Kessler told the News-Press he went to law school with Miller and they went into business together. He acknowledged a short-lived romance with Miller, but he alleged she later harassed him and the woman who became his wife. “Any love triangle was in her head,” he said. He said Miller filed multiple lawsuits against him, but that she stopped legal filings about six months ago.
He also said he assisted in the ethics investigation that led Miller to lose her law license. According to the Virginia State Bar, Miller consented to disbarment (PDF) in October 2009. In an affidavit, she said she failed to file timely bankruptcy petitions in many cases, failed to maintain appropriate trust account records, and withdrew fees from the account before filing bankruptcy petitions.
