Everett medical worker charged with ID theft of 39 patients

EDMONDS – An Everett medical worker stole confidential records from 39 patients, including elderly patients, in an attempt to forge identities that were used to rent an apartment and buy two cars. This emerges from unprofessional charges by the Washington State Department of Health.

The 37-year-old woman was charged with identity theft from Swedish hospital patients in a separate criminal case. The victims were of two different age groups: seniors in their 70s to 90s and younger women who resembled the suspect, assistant prosecutor Halley Hupp wrote.

The defendant had worked in the medical field since at least 2007. Prosecutors allege she committed the fraud while serving as a certified Swedish medical assistant from November 2018 to December 2019.

In July 2019, the defendant bought a car valued at $ 51,000 from a dealer in Bellevue based on a patient’s personal information. The car was delivered to an address in Everett.

The dealership later learned that the vehicle had been bought under an assumed name. Staff checked their website and found that the woman had used a different stolen identity – another Swedish patient, it turned out – to display car prices according to health ministry fees.

About three months later, the Swedish worker used another patient’s information to buy another car from a Mazda dealership in Lynnwood. The Mazda was delivered to an apartment in Lynnwood. It was valued at $ 25,000, the health department claimed.

At the end of November 2019, a Swedish patient contacted the police in Brier. She reported that her Social Security number was used to rent apartments in Marysville and Everett.

Edmonds Police have issued a search warrant in the Lynnwood apartment where the Mazda was delivered. They found the defendants’ belongings, including prescription drugs on their behalf, according to the prosecution.

Days later, police found the car at the Lynnwood dealership. It had been parked outside an apartment in Everett at a different address linked to the suspect. Police seized the Mazda and found it had license plates for another car, an Audi registered with the suspect in 2017.

The officers asked the defendant how to buy a car and rent an apartment on behalf of other people. She replied that she “knew people” who reportedly told her how to do it.

An employee of the Lynnwood dealer identified the defendant from a photographic statement and reported that she was the person he had delivered the car to.

The woman was arrested in late 2019. From Snohomish County Jail, she called her ex-husband at least four times, according to identity theft charges. She mentioned the specific name of a patient whose identity she allegedly used to purchase the Mazda.

She was released from prison when prosecutors failed to file charges in 2019. Prosecutors took action in September 2020 with first-degree identity theft, second-degree identity theft and vehicle theft offenses.

Court officials sent letters to three addresses linked to the defendant in Everett and Sedro-Woolley, telling her that she was due to appear on trial. She didn’t show up. A Snohomish County Supreme Court judge issued an arrest warrant for her in December 2020.

The warrant appeared to be in effect from Friday.

In the separate disciplinary process, she was indicted by the Ministry of Health in March and named seven specific patients as victims. The woman’s health certificate had expired almost a year earlier.

The state agency announced the allegations in a press release last week.

Government records indicate that the woman was certified as a nursing assistant from 2007 to 2010. After a three-year hiatus, she was issued a medical assistant certificate in 2013.

In early 2019 divorce papers, the woman noted that she had about $ 23,000 in car loan debt for another car, a Toyota Corolla.

Ellen Dennis: 425-339-3486; [email protected]; Twitter: @reporterellen.