News Release
U.S. Department of Justice
United States Attorney
District of Rhode Island
April 10, 2008
Indictment charges four in hospital patient identity theft
A federal grand jury has charged a former security guard at Rhode Island Hospital and three former RadioShack employees with a fraud scheme in which hospital patients’ identity information was allegedly used to purchase electronic equipment and cell phone accounts.
United States Attorney Robert Clark Corrente and Thomas Powers, Resident Agent in Charge of the Providence Office of the United States Secret Service, jointly announced the indictment, which was filed yesterday in U.S. District Court, Providence. The indictment supplants a complaint filed against three of the defendants last month.
The indictment alleges that the former guard, Michael Bermudez, used his position to obtain identification data of patients, employees, and others at Rhode Island Hospital, information that included names, dates of birth, and social security numbers. It alleges that Bermudez used that information to open credit card accounts and to activate cell phone accounts at a RadioShack store on Garfield Avenue in Cranston, and at another on Atwells Avenue in Providence. The indictment alleges that Roberto Valerio, Hector Alvarez, and James Hernandez, who worked at the stores, facilitated Bermudez in opening the fraudulent accounts.
Bermudez allegedly used the charge accounts to purchase electronic equipment, and sold the phones that he obtained with the activated cell phone accounts.
The indictment identifies by initials nine alleged victims of the scheme, all said to have been patients at Rhode Island Hospital between April 2006 and February 2008, when Bermudez was employed by a security guard contractor and assigned to posts at Rhode Island Hospital.
The indictment charges the four defendants with conspiracy to traffic in counterfeit access devices and trafficking in counterfeit access devices. It also charges Bermudez with aggravated identity theft, which is using identity theft to commit another crime.
An indictment is merely an allegation, and a defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty. Upon conviction, the maximum penalty for the offenses charged in the indictment are: conspiracy – five years in prison and a $250,000 fine; trafficking in counterfeit access devices – ten years prison and a $250,000 fine; aggravated identity theft – two years in prison, consecutive to any other sentence imposed.
Bermudez, Alvarez, and Valerio were named in last month’s complaint. Bermudez, 26, of Regent Avenue, Providence, and Alvarez, 29, of Sisson Street, Providence, appeared on March 14 before U.S. Magistrate Judge Lincoln D. Almond. Magistrate Judge Almond released Alvarez on unsecured bond. Valerio, 25, of Thackery Street, Providence, is also free on unsecured bond after appearing before Magistrate Judge Almond on April 2. Bond was set for Bermudez, but he is incarcerated in New York as a parole violator. Hernandez, 22, of Parnell Street, Providence, was not named in the complaint.
The United States Secret Service investigated the case, with assistance from Cranston Police. Assistant U.S. Attorney Adi Goldstein is prosecuting it.