A D.C. doctor’s office receptionist who stole patients’ personal information later helped bring down a national identity theft ring that included Federal Reserve Bank Chairman Ben Bernanke among its victims, court documents show.
Before she helped authorities nab the ring’s two leaders, Makieta Leake sold Clyde Austin Gray and Leonardo Zanders Social Security numbers and photocopied checks belonging to 37 patients of Drs. Marc Shepard and Stanley Lugerner. Gray and Zanders used that information, and identities collected across the country by pickpockets and other office workers, to steal more than $2 million, court records said. Leake is scheduled to be sentenced Friday.
One of those pickpockets stole a purse belonging to the Fed chairman’s wife, Anna Bernanke, from a chair in a D.C. Starbucks. The information in her wallet was used by ring members to deposit $900 from Bernanke’s account into their own.
Gray and Zanders used the identifying information provided by Leake and others to create counterfeit driver’s licenses that they then used to access the victims’ bank accounts. Authorities say they stole more than $400,000 from Leake’s victims.
Leake, however, earned between $200 and $500 for each name she sold directly to Gray, she admitted when pleading guilty in September.
When investigators connected the stolen patients’ identities to Leake, she quickly turned on Gray. In her role as an informant, Leake recorded conversations with Gray during which he discussed paying her for new sets of personal information.
Prosecutors said that when Gray was later made aware of the admissions recorded by Leake, he quickly pleaded guilty. Zanders did the same soon after learning Leake would be testifying against him during trial.
Gray has been sentenced to more than 11 years in prison and Zanders is scheduled to be sentenced Jan. 22, court records show.
Sentencing guidelines suggest Leake spend at most 4 years, 3 months behind bars, but prosecutors have asked the judge to cut her sentence in half because of Leake’s cooperation. Leake’s attorney has asked the judge to sentence her to no more than one year.
