At the top of the page, the letterhead read Vanguard Engineering, using the exact address of my Park Slope office.
“I have never seen this document,” I said, my finger tracing the margins. “I do not do residential structural work in Brooklyn.”
“Mark does,” Julian said. “Or rather, he sold the service to people who did not know the difference.”
“How could he do that?” I asked. “You need a licensed professional engineer’s stamp to file these with the Department of Buildings.”
Julian flipped to the back of the folder, revealing a photocopy of a municipal filing form.
In the bottom right corner, in the official state registry box, was my license number: 084211.
“He pulled your registration details off the state public database,” Julian said. “Then he created a fake corporate entity using your name as the sole proprietor.”
“That is identity theft,” I said.
“It is much worse than that,” Julian said, his voice dropping an octave. “He sold eleven of these fake structural reports to local families who were doing major structural renovations.”
