Arrested driver: ‘Yes, I’m a 20-year-old woman’

A Utah woman pulled over because her car lacked plates was hit with an impersonation charge after she insisted she was her own daughter.

A Utah woman pulled over because her car lacked plates was hit with an impersonation charge after she insisted she was her own daughter.

Heather Elaine Garcia, 38, was stopped Saturday in Sunset, Utah, a small city on the east shore of the Great Salt Lake, the Gephardt Daily said.

She told the sheriff’s deputy that she did not have identification on her, and she gave him a name and a 1999 date of birth. When he ran a records search from the computer in his car, the image that came up “was not the female I was with,” the officer said in the probable-cause statement.

By that time, a second deputy had arrived, with a dog that was interested in the woman’s car. A search of it turned up  a white powder and drug paraphernalia. While arresting her, the officer again asked her name, and she insisted that she had already provided it.

Finally, while she was being handcuffed, she admitted she was using her 20-year-old daughter’s name because, she said, they look very similar to each other.

Garcia is facing these charges, the Gephardt Daily said:

• Providing false personal information with intent to be another actual person, a class A misdemeanor
• Possession of a controlled substance, a class A misdemeanor
• Use or possession of drug paraphernalia, a class B misdemeanor
• Driving on a suspended or revoked license, a class C misdemeanor
• Operating a vehicle without insurance, a class C misdemeanor.

She also had active warrants out for her arrest.