ENGLEWOOD, Colo. -- The Arapahoe County District Attorney's Office is advising anyone who has used Cove Creek Mortgage to watch out for identity theft after hundreds of mortgage files were dumped in a public trash bin over the weekend.

Cove Creek's owner had abandoned his Englewood office in January, and property managers had not been able to find him, investigators said. On Saturday, the property manager had a crew clean out his office and throw all items from the office -- including complete mortgage files -- into two Dumpsters.

David Peters who works in the same complex found the files Monday morning.

"I was taking some other trash out to the garbage can and opened the lid and on there was a couple of laptops," said Peters. "Directly underneath them were files with people's names on it and I was like, 'Well, this is not right.'"

Peters said he opened a file.

"There were tax returns, pay stubs, everything in there," he said. "And as I looked at the different files I realized that it was mortgage files, which was kind of scary, because who do you disclose the most information to or all of your information? That is when you are getting a mortgage loan."

The Dumpsters were not secured and located at 88 Inverness Drive East, Bldg. F.

Peters' boss tipped off the district attorney's fraud unit about what happened, and when the district attorney's office was able to confirm that sensitive files were left unsecured, the Arapahoe County Sheriff's Office was called in to investigate.

Sheriff's investigators finally found the owner of Cove Creek and talked him into retrieving the files, many of which had private information, including Social Security numbers and credit history.

"With a name, Social Security number and bank account number, they can clean you out before you even know," said Arapahoe County District Attorney Carol Chambers.

While there are civil laws against dumping such documentation, Chambers said it is not against the law.

"I think it is a matter of legislation not catching up with the realities of identity theft," said Chambers. "And absolutely, we think recklessly disposing or negligently disposing of this kind of information should maybe carry a criminal penalty, just to get people's attention that you can't just leave this information or leave it out in a Dumpster."

For further information, assistance or questions, call the District Attorney's Fraud Assistance Line at 720-874-8547.