A woman attempting to pass a forged check led police to a ring of identity thieves in Magna and the filing of 84 felony counts against three of them.

When arrested, Jennifer Lynn Neal, 32, had a list containing personal identification information for 21 people around the United States, according to documents filed Friday in 3rd District Court.

The documents say a roommate of Neal obtained personal information on several dozen people while working at a satellite TV customer call center.

Investigators contacted the first name on Neal's list, a woman in Virginia, who said her credit card company had just informed her of a $250 Nordstrom gift certificate purchased online. West Valley detective William McKnight said Nordstrom officials confirmed the card was used to purchase a pair of pants and then the pants were returned six minutes later at a different register for a cash refund.

"The guy used his own name on the receipt," McKnight said.

That receipt was traced to 28-year-old Mickey J. Kaletta, who is on probation for prior burglary offenses.

The information used to buy the gift card was allegedly obtained by Barry Keith Flynn, 44, while he was working as a customer service representative at Clearlink in Salt Lake City.

The company, according to its Web site, fields calls for Dish Network, Direct TV, Earthlink, DirectWay and Alarm One. During his former employment, Flynn secured the names, addresses, phone numbers, credit card numbers and expiration dates and Social Security numbers of dozens of people from all over the United States.

Flynn, Neal, and Kaletta, along with Tawnee Rushelle Barrett, 30, who all lived together in Magna, used the information to forge identification documents that were used those to obtain merchandise at various merchants, using gift cards purchased online, court documents say.

Three of the four were charged Friday with 84 felony counts each, including unlawful possession of another's identification documents, identity fraud, communications fraud, falsely making, encoding or signing a financial transaction card, possession of a forged writing, and possession of a forgery device.

Flynn, Neal and Barrett were booked into jail on the charges. An arrest warrant was issued for Kaletta.

All of the counts are third-degree felonies, punishable by a $5,000 fine and up to five years in prison for each count.

"And that is only what we found for the first two weeks of March," McKnight said. He said the investigation will continue, and he suspects several more people will be involved. "After searching their home, we found several photos on fake IDs of people we still have to identify and figure out their involvement in all this."

McKnight said the investigation is so widespread that the federal government will most likely take over next week.

The U.S. Postal Service is expected to send letters out to all of the potential victims, alerting them of the situation and telling them to call police if they notice unusual or unauthorized charges on their bills.

"A lot of them don't even know they're victims," McKnight said.

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E-mail: wleonard@desnews.com