PA: Couple gets prison time for tax refund fraud scheme that used Crozer-Chester patients’ information
There’s an update to a case I’ve been covering since March, 2013, when Rafael Henriquez Polanco and his wife, Yanira Lopez, were first charged in a tax refund fraud scheme. According to court records, as part of the scheme, they paid employees at Crozer-Chester Medical Center and Chester Community Hospital to provide them with identity information of 144 patients. The hospitals were notified of the breach in October 2011.
In May, 2014, one of the employees involved, Reynaldo Estrada, pleaded guilty. He was sentenced in August 2014.
For their part, Polanco was sentenced in February to 51 months in prison for numerous fraud and narcotics offenses. His wife, Yanira Lopez, was sentenced last week to 48 months in prison. Delco Daily Times reports that
in addition to the prison time, U.S. District Court Judge Mitchell S. Goldberg ordered three years of supervised release for each defendant, restitution totaling $447,299 for Lopez and $409,779 for Polanco, and special assessments of $500 and $600 respectively.
