BETTY BOOP AT IT AGAIN

Cresskill police arrest accused Rockland con woman with different IDs

BY GERARD DEMARCO

Originally published in the Cliffview Pilot

Already charged with getting public assistance even though she had a job and a new driver’s license after hers was suspended, an accused con woman from Rockland County has been arrested again, this time by Cresskill detectives.

A woman who works with Betty Bourguignon, 38, of Spring Valley told police earlier this month that Sprint hit her debit card three times for a total of $220 in charges for a phone that wasn’t hers.

“She thought it may have happened at work,” Cresskill Detective John Birnie told CLIFFVIEW PILOT. “That day, she noticed that her card wasn’t in her wallet, where she always keeps it. It was laying in her bag.”

Birnie subpoenaed Sprint’s records and learned that the charges were run up by a Betty Christopher.

Managers at the local company said they didn’t have anyone by that name working there — but they recalled that Bourguignon had used it in the past.

“She has so many different aliases, so many different birthdays,” Birnie said. “Her license was suspended, so she got a valid license under a different name. We had to dig through different records ajust to be sure it was her.”

After a brief chat, detectives took Bourguignon into custody, he said. They also contacted their colleagues in Spring Valley.

Bourguignon is already under indictment in Rockland for identity theft. Fort Lee authorities also want her for skipping a ticket for driving while suspended.

Rockland’s District Attorney’s Office arrested Bourguignon in July on a single count of grand larceny for claiming that she was unemployed and collecting food stamps and other public assistance even though she had a job in Rockleigh.

Authorities said she collected $17,422.50 in government assistance benefits she wasn’t entitled to in less than a year.

Although she faces a potential seven years behind bars if convicted in that case, a Ramapo judge released her without bail — and she went back to work.

After two days in the Bergen County Jail following the Cresskill arrest, Bourguignon posted $40,000 bail late last week and was released pending a court appearance.

  Cresskill police, crime betty boop, Rockland crime