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Patrick Robert McKee, 75, Burlington, who has been using the alias William Patrick O'Hara and had worked at Walmart in Minot, has been indicted in U.S. District Court on one count of using another man's Social Security number and name to establish a new identity. He allegedly used the stolen identity on a USDA home mortgage loan application in North Dakota in 2017, to obtain health insurance from Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Dakota, and to obtain hydrocodone in July 2020.
According to court documents, the Minot Social Security Administration field office sent an inquiry as to whether "William O'Hara" was still considered deceased after "O'Hara" signed a document consenting to release of information on Dec. 27, 2020. According to court documents, O'Hara filed for a new Social Security card in 1997, using an Ohio driver's license he had obtained using the stolen identity. He used the stolen man's identity to obtain an Ohio probate court order changing his name to "William Patrick O'Hara" and then used the probate court order to have a new Social Security card issued in the name of William Patrick O'Hara. At some point he moved to North Dakota, where he applied for a USDA Rural Development backed mortgage to buy a house in Burlington in 2017 using the stolen identity. At one point he had married a woman in 1997 in Ohio who knew him as "William O'Hara." She divorced him in 2011 and has since passed away. His former wife's relatives told authorities that "O'Hara" told the woman he had needed to get a "new birth certificate" to get a new Social Security card in about 1997.
According to a law enforcement affidavit, the rightful holder of the Social Security number that McKee has been using died in Michigan in 2017. Authorities interviewed the man's children, who said they were aware that someone had stolen their father's identity and had been using his Social Security number. Their father had issues when he filed his taxes because there were unexplained earnings on his Social Security register each year and his name had been changed on his Social Security Administration record to William Patrick O'Hara.
Law enforcement agents went to the Minot Walmart on Feb. 18 to see "O'Hara" working there and confirmed that he was not the same man as the deceased man who was the rightful holder of the Social Security number that he had been using.
McKee was arraigned on the charges on Tuesday. A trial has been scheduled for June 8 in U.S. District Court in Bismarck. McKee is currently in custody at the Ward County Jail.