Man accused of stealing patient info at Haley Medical VA center

Willie Streater is being held on a $35,000 bond after being accused of stealing personal information from 34 veterans treated at the James A. Haley VA Medical Center, and selling them to individuals who used the info to file fradulent tax returns.

Streater, 24, worked for Secure Waste Disoposal Inc. of Orlando, a company who has a contract with the VA to shred documents with patient’s personal information. The same kind of documents such as the ones that Streater kept from shredding in order to sell them.

Streater’s record wasn’t entirely clean upon being hired to work at the North Tampa facility…

“Since 2007, Streater has accepted plea deals on charges that included the sale and possession of cocaine, grand theft and burglary, FDLE and Hillsborough court records show. A judge withheld adjudication in the cases and Streater received probation.” – Tampa Bay Times

In this case, which was investigated by the IRS and VA’s Inspector General among others, Streater is being charged with five counts of the wrongful disclosure of health information, two counts of credit card fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft. Prosecutors say that just over a million dollars was stolen.