Merced County woman sentenced in identity theft case

A Merced County woman has been sentenced to state prison on felony charges related to multiple identity-theft crimes, District Attorney Larry D. Morse II said Monday.

Tyche Duverna, 31, was ordered to serve four years and eight months on two felony charges of first-degree burglary and “accessing a computer to defraud,” according to a news release from the Merced County’s District Attorney’s Office.

Duverna had been a charged suspect in more than a dozen cases dating back to 2009. Charges included mail theft, identity theft, check fraud, forgery, receiving stolen property, burglary and drug possession, the District Attorney’s Office said Monday. These cases involved more than 60 known victims in Merced County, Southern California and Nevada.

The most recent crimes occurred in 2013 and involved repeated theft and forgery affecting 24 victims.

“This concludes a complex and difficult investigation and prosecution of identity theft crimes by a sophisticated defendant using stolen identifying information and the internet to target victims,” Morse said in the news release.

The Atwater Police Department, Merced Police Department, Merced County Sheriff’s Office, United States Postal Service and Internal Revenue Service contributed to the investigation.

This story was originally published November 30, 2015 at 5:49 PM with the headline "Merced County woman sentenced in identity theft case."