VA Contractor Put Veterans Info in Hands of Tampa Criminal

Man accused of stealing Haley VA patient ID info
Tampa Bay Times
William R. Levesque
Times Staff Writer
Friday, August 22, 2014

VA policy requires a criminal background check for employees. It is unclear if that policy extends to contractors. The VA revamped rules concerning document shredding in 2008 after investigators found that agency employees improperly destroyed veteran claim documents.

TAMPA — The documents with the Social Security numbers of veterans treated at the James A. Haley VA Medical Center were supposed to be shredded by a company whose website warns, "Don't become a victim of identity theft."

But the firm, federal prosecutors say, employed a 24-year-old with a criminal history who kept those records out of the shredder, instead selling them to individuals who used the documents to file fraudulent tax returns.

Federal marshals on Wednesday arrested Willie Streater of E Hamilton Avenue in Tampa on eight charges accusing him of stealing the Social Security numbers of at least 34 veterans treated at Haley in 2011 and 2012. Prosecutors say $1.1 million was stolen.

It is the second case filed since 2013 charging someone with stealing identifying information of veterans treated at Haley.

Streater worked for Secure Waste Disposal Inc. of Orlando, a company under contract with the Department of Veterans Affairs to shred documents at the North Tampa hospital, prosecutors say. The indictment did not say what kind of patient records were involved in the case.
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