A hospital employee stole the identities of dying patients to steal Covid benefits
Staff at a Scripps hospital in Chula Vista care for Covid patients. Nonprofit Scripps has been hit not only by an alleged insider identity theft this year, in which the defendant is accused of stealing the data of the dying, but by ransomware, too.“We want old people?” Matthew Lombardo asked, texting from the Scripps Health hospital in San Diego where he worked as a patient financial service representative.
The previously undisclosed data breach highlights how the dying make particularly good targets for such a fraud: bed-ridden and incapacitated, they’re unlikely to notice someone stealing their identity. Once they’re dead, there may still be time to pilfer their ID before government death databases are updated and anti-fraud alarms go off. Some gravediggers may also feel less moral culpability about pilfering from them rather than from the living.
As the conspiracy went on, Lombardo would relay what kinds of people made good targets for the fraud, the government claims. One was a homeless woman, who Lombardo said “might be a good one,” while another was a man who’d recently died from a heart attack, according to the warrant document. Yet another, a former General Dynamics employee, was a heart attack victim, who Lombardo said likely wouldn’t live, the warrant continued.
Police believe that Lombardo was recruited into the criminal scheme in August 2020. According to his LinkedIn page, Lombardo worked at the Scripps facility “part time to give back to the community,” his other gig being a self-employed medical marijuana grower. Scripps confirmed that Lombardo had been let go earlier this year. “Mr. Lombardo was a patient services specialist employed by Scripps Health on an as-needed basis from May 13 2019 to April 14 2021.
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