Florida Man Said He Impersonated Senator Dick Durbin To Get Out Of Debt

By Austin Brown in News on Sep 8, 2016 4:38PM

Paying your loans is annoying and hard. I know it, you know it, pretty much all of us know it. And sure, every once in a while we all think, "what if United States Senator Dick Durbin could just help me out with my loan?" But this case shows the perils of these easy outs, no matter how universal our desires for Durbin debt forgiveness are.

This brings us to Sidney Hines of New Port Richey, Florida, only a few thousand miles from Illinois, who on Wednesday plead guilty to impersonating Senator Durbin, in an effort to avoid paying off his home loan of $5,864, taken out in 2008.

Hines reportedly called ClearSpring Loan Services, the collection agency responsible for helping him pay off his loan, as Durbin five times between March 2013 and December 2014, before finally being indicted in May of this year. Hines would, apparently, in the guise of Durbin, tell the collection agency that Hines's loan was paid in full and to remove the loan from Hines's credit report.

Interestingly, reporting in the New York Daily News and local Florida outlets have stated that Hines made attempts to keep Durbin's role semi-anonymous, only referring to himself as a "sitting U.S. Senator from Illinois" with the initials R.D. We appreciate Hines’s gentle-hearted willingness to allow the more easily confused at ClearSpring Loans to think he was Mark Kirk.

We're sure Senator Durbin's heart was warmed to hear that word of his anonymous kindness (and, apparently, interest in home debt) has stretched as far as Florida. However, we can't help but wonder what the sitting U.S. Senators from Florida, Bill Nelson and Marco Rubio, make of the situation. Hopefully, they don't feel too left out.

Hines faces up to three years in prison.