Identity theft cases are not taken lightly by Colorado prosecutors. In fact, identity theft is a class 4 felony. The statute defines identity theft as knowingly using the personal identifying information, financial identifying information, or financial device of someone else without their permission or lawful authority, in order to obtain cash, credit, property, services, or any other thing of value or to make a financial payment.

A related crime to identity theft is criminal possession of a financial device. A person commits this crime if they possess any financial device that the person knows or should know is lost, stolen, or delivered under mistaken identity. How serious a crime this is depends on how many financial devices are possessed by the accused. If the accused has one financial device, it is a class 1 misdemeanor; if the accused has two or more financial devices, it is a class 6 felony; if the accused has four or more financial devices belonging to more than one victim, it is a class 5 felony.

Even the mere possession of identity theft tools is considered to be a class 5 felony. Gathering identity information by deception also is a class 5 felony.