Stacey Lavette Hendricks, who is a 49-year-old local of Leesburg, FL, pleaded guilty to wire fraudulence and aggravated identity theft. Hendricks was an employee in a medical clinic who was caught impermissibly accessing the protected health information (PHI) of patients and selling the information to identity thieves.
As an administrative employee in the past at various Florida state medical clinics, Hendricks could access the PHI of patients. She stole from unnamed medical clinics the following types of patient data: names, Social Security numbers, and birth dates. Hendricks offered the data for sale to identity thieves and duped businesses using the information.
The United States Secret Service investigated this occurrence and arrested Hendricks after she attempted to peddle some stolen patient information to an undercover secret service agent. Police officers acquired a warrant to lookup her residence and vehicle and they found the data of 113 patients that Hendricks took from the health clinics.
The United States District Court in the Middle District of Florida in Ocala filed a lawsuit on Hendricks who pleaded guilty to the charges – one count of wire fraud and two counts of fraud having identification documents: possession of means of identification with intent to perpetrate felony and aggravated identity theft. There is no set date yet for sentencing.
Hendricks right now is confronted with a maximum of 20 years jail term for the charge on wire fraud and a 2-year consecutive jail term for aggravated identity theft.