NYC Couple Allegedly Lived Large With Money Stolen From S.I. Hospital Patients
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- A New York City couple is accused of stealing the identities of hospital patients and spending exorbitant amounts of their money with phony credit cards.
Amanda Zieminksi, 26, and Clyde Forteau, 29, are charged, along with three others, in the massive identity theft ring, 1010 WINS' Juliet Papa reported.
Zieminksi, a Staten Island resident who worked as a nurse at the South Shore Physicians Group, took information from the records of at least 80 patients, authorities said. Forteau, her beau from the Bronx, then reportedly used the stolen information to open the false accounts.
Couple Allegedly Lived Large With Money Stolen From Hospital Patients
His three friends were also in on the scam, police said.
The couple allegedly used the money to buy courtside tickets for a 2012 NBA Eastern Conference finals game in Boston, a vacation to the Dominican Republic and a trip to Disney World, where the two got engaged -- and then posted the pictures on social media.
"On her Facebook page, Amanda writes 'With my fiancee outside Cinderella's castle. I'm living a fairy tale,'" said Staten Island District Attorney Daniel Donovan.
But, he continued, these two were no Cinderella and Prince Charming.
"Her life yesterday became a nightmare," he said on Wednesday. "However, this story does have a fairytale ending – for law enforcement."
The group was charged Wednesday in a 64-count indictment which includes enterprise corruption, identity theft, falsifying business records, criminal possession of stolen property and grand larceny and grand larceny as a hate crime.
"It's unconscionable that an individual entrusted with providing healthcare betrayed her profession and preyed on unsuspecting patients, some of whom were in their 90s and reliant on life savings," Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said in a statement.
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