Four accused of stealing cancer patients IDs
By Palm Beach Business.com
FORT LAUDERDALE — A federal grand jury has indicted four Broward residents for allegedly stealing the identities of cancer patients in Palm Beach and Broward counties and using the information to fraudulently open credit accounts.
Charged in the conspiracy were: Sharita Hubbard, 31, Onakia Griffin, 31, Lakenya Knight, 33, all of Pompano Beach, Florida, and Cherralyn Milton-Browner, 37. The four are charged with conspiracy to commit wire, identity theft, and credit card fraud, wire fraud, credit card fraud, and aggravated identity theft.
Hubbard was the key, according to the indictment. Between October 2006 and February 2009, Hubbard worked in the records department at University MRI Diagnostic Center in Boca Raton, Holy Cross Hospital, North Ridge Medical Center in Fort Lauderdale, and Oncology and Hematology Associates of West Broward in Tamarac.
Hubbard used her job to copy patient information, including names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, Medicare numbers, and addresses.
She would feed the information to the other three, who would then open fraudulent credit accounts in the names of the patients. Altogether, they took the patients for $162,0000, according to the indictment.
If convicted, the defendants face a maximum of 5 years on the conspiracy charge, 20 years on each charge of wire fraud, 10 years on the credit card fraud charge, and a mandatory consecutive 2 years on each charge of aggravated identity theft.
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