A 37-year-old former Yale-New Haven Hospital employee was sentenced to four years in prison after pleading guilty to charges connected to an identity fraud and identity case that authorities said affected more than 30 people. The person authorities identified as her accomplice has been sentenced to 16 months in prison.
According to court documents, Jamila Williams-Stevenson, 37, of West Haven, worked with 43-year-old Lorena Coburn, of West Haven, between 2012 and July 2016 to steal people's information, which included patients at Yale-New Haven Hospital where Williams-Stevenson worked as a care companion.
As part of their scheme, Williams-Stevenson and Coburn changed their victims’ addresses through the post office and took over their mail so they could steal their checks, make counterfeit checks and open bank accounts in the names of their victims.
They even took out a life insurance policy in the name of one of their victims for $75,000. When authorities seized Williams-Stevenson’s iPhone, they found text messages with Coburn discussing how they might be able to cause the death of the victim and make it look like an accident to collect on the life insurance policy, authorities said.
The father of one victim said his daughter was a patient at Yale-New Haven Hospital at the time it happened.
“They had called me and wanted me to be her beneficiary for some reason in case something happened, so that’s how they got it,” he said, explaining that during the phone call he handed over his and his daughter’s personal information.
Williams-Stevenson was arrested on July 21, 2016, and investigators said they found more than 200 credit and debit cards in the names of various identity theft victims while searching her house and a storage unit. She was sentenced on Tuesday.
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Judge Bolden ordered Williams-Stevenson to pay restitution of $53,365.37 to financial institutions and a university that suffered financial losses.
On Dec. 12, she pleaded guilty to one count of bank fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft.
Coburn pleaded guilty to the same charges and has been sentenced to 16 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release.
