DENVER – When Brandon Michael rolled up a storage unit door in Denver on New Year’s Day to sort through the contents he had just purchased at an auction, he expected to find the usual items he could later sell on Craigslist or eBay: tools, laptops and furniture.
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Instead, Michael discovered boxes, filing cabinets and trash bags full of hundreds of U.S. passports, birth certificates, driver’s licenses, Social Security cards and other documents – most stolen within the past two years.
He found St. Anthony Central Hospital records containing dates of birth, Social Security numbers and copies of the driver’s licenses of 150 patients who had been admitted into the emergency room or general surgery.
He found drug paraphernalia, pills and the printer used to make counterfeit documents.
“That’s not right that somebody has all this stuff,” Michael said.
“It’s the mother lode of identity theft,” said Sgt. Ryan McGinty of the Denver Police Department’s check fraud and forgery unit.
Michael’s discovery has prompted investigations by Denver Police, Centura Health, which operates St. Anthony Central, and the U.S. Department of Health & Human Service’s Office of Civil Rights.
Worried about having the documents and drugs, Michael packed it all up and drove straight to the police department, but he says the officer at the front desk told him police weren’t interested and said he should throw it in the trash.
“They said they didn’t want it. They wanted me to throw it away. They said they didn’t even want to throw it away, they wanted me to find a dumpster for it,” said Michael.
Instead of trashing the evidence, Michael delivered it to 9NEWS.
9Wants to Know dug through the piles of documents to learn there is information about more than 200 people across Colorado.
Richard and Sheila Vieira had tears in their eyes when 9Wants to Know gave them back their real birth certificates, passports and Social Security cards that were found in the storage unit.
“I never thought we’d see them again,” Sheila Vieira said.
Someone broke into the Vieira’s home in early 2008, stealing family and legacy jewelry and personal documents.
“He violated us and our family,” said Sheila Vieira. “He took away things that have a deep emotional attachment that can’t be replaced.”
“It just brings back the whole situation, the whole event,” said Richard Vieira. “Everything we had to go through to replace all of it, the inconvenience of it and then, why does someone think this is OK? It’s more than just taking the things. It’s the personal violation.”
9Wants to Know also showed the Vieiras several copies of Richard Vieira’s driver’s license with his date of birth but an unknown address and another man’s face.
9Wants to Know followed the paper trail to find the face belongs to the man who had previously rented the storage unit, Paul Simmons. The 46-year-old Denver man has been convicted in Florida for grand theft, burglary and dealing in stolen property.
Simmons says he has nothing to do with the documents found in his old storage unit, including the multiple driver’s licenses with his picture on them.
“Have I been using them? What have I done illegally? Have I been arrested for it?” Simmons said. “It has nothing to do with me.”
Other people became victims of identity theft when they went into the emergency room at St. Anthony Central Hospital bruised from car accidents, sick from food poisoning or convulsing with seizures.
“My bank account was cleaned out,” said Timothy Cox, a single father in Denver. “It was devastating. Food money, mortgage money, they took it all.”
Cox’s bank account was drained two months after he was taken by ambulance to the emergency room at St. Anthony Central in October 2007 after a traffic accident.
Someone had used his information to charge $9,000 at stores across California while he was at work in Denver. It took him months to clear up his finances.
Cox says the last thing he was worried about after getting rear-ended in a traffic accident was giving St. Anthony Central his private information.
“You just expect the hospital to be like the bank. When you give them stuff, it’s safe,” said Cox. “You trust them to take care of your information, and I was hurt.”
Another patient who has been in and out of St. Anthony Central over the past year because of a chronic illness was surprised to see another man’s face on 15 copies of his driver’s license.
“I’ve never seen that guy in my life,” said Troy Harcourt of Golden. “It’s crazy. I’m totally speechless.”
9NEWS also spoke to patient Matthew Brunke, who says has never let his real documents out of his sight. We showed him a forged Social Security card with his number on it and several fake driver’s licenses that had his name on them, but fake addresses and another man’s pictures.
“I don’t have any clue who this is,” said Brunke. “It’s just scary that somebody would even do this.”
After 9NEWS alerted St. Anthony Central about the patient records found in the storage unit, the hospital investigated.
Within 48 hours, the hospital says it tracked down the employee who accessed the hospital records.
“This particular associate was confronted with this and the associate immediately confessed to the fact that they indeed had taken this information outside of our organization,” said St. Anthony Central CEO Peter Makowski. “We are very, very regretful that this ever took place.”
The hospital fired her last week. She had been an employee at the hospital for five years and passed a criminal background check and compliance tests, according to St. Anthony Central.
Records show the 150 patients whose stolen documents were found in the storage unit were admitted in the hospital during a six month period between 2007 and 2008.
The hospital is offering patients a free identity-theft protection service. You can read more about that at http://centura.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=43&item=338.
The hospital said it has contacted the Office for Civil Rights with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services about the breach. The department investigates HIPAA privacy law violations.
The hospital also said it’s increasing the number of patient medical record system audits and educational efforts.
Whoever was committing the fraud knew what they were doing, according to an identity theft expert.
That’s because the person duplicated and forged people’s information only if they had good credit and no history of criminal activity.
Bank records and receipts in Simmons’ name show criminal background checks were conducted on people whose stolen documents were found in his storage unit. If victims had no criminal history, their identities were put in envelopes with handwriting that says, “Great! Nothing! Clean!”
On the other hand, if the victims had felony records, their identities were put in envelopes with handwriting that says, “No good! Big record!”
“The guy’s a professional,” said John Soma, professor of law at the University of Denver and executive director of the Privacy Foundation.
Soma reviewed all of the stolen and counterfeited documents.
“Whoever’s doing this is using all of the tools he can to maximize the value of the personal identities he has stolen,” he said.
Simmons owns the painting company “Pro Painters” in Lakewood. He worked for MPB Contractors in Aurora two years ago until he had a falling out with the company.
MPB owner Jay Melvey says he was surprised when he saw his company’s name and his signature on forged checks found in Simmons’ unit.
“I’ve heard of it happening, I just never thought it would happen to me,” said Melvey. “It’s concerning that it’s that easy for someone to take a photocopy of a canceled check and make it look presentable.”
Melvey is trying to learn whether the checks ever cleared his bank.
Some of those fake checks for nearly $900 were made out to David Mazer of Englewood, whose driver’s license was stolen out of his car at a gym three years ago.
Mazer says he doesn’t know Simmons, has never worked for MPB Contractors and was surprised to see his license after all this time.
“This is pretty shocking. It’s pretty disturbing,” said Mazer. “I don’t know how you can cash checks with that ID, with that picture on it.”
Mazer’s name also appears on other forged checks made out to the company, “Excel Custom Drywall,” which Mazer has neither heard of nor worked for.
When contacted by 9NEWS, Denver Police asked the station to turn over the evidence in the storage unit so that it could begin a criminal investigation, and the station complied.
The Denver Police Department also began an internal investigation of the officer who allegedly turned down the documents when Michael brought them to the police station.
“That’s something we have to look into,” said Denver Police spokesman Sonny Jackson. “What I do know at first blush is this is a very young officer, hasn’t even been on the department a year, he’s a brand new officer, and he made a mistake.”
Jackson says all officers are trained in the police academy how to recognize and handle identity theft.
The Denver Police Department participates in events at least twice a year that teach people how to protect their personal information. Police cadets also volunteer time to help residents shred documents that don’t belong in the trash.
Jackson says police are fortunate that Brandon Michael tried to bring the information to police and hopes that other residents will follow in his footsteps.
“He’s a good citizen. He obviously realized what was going on and he took the appropriate measures,” said Jackson. “We want other people to come forward too.”
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