A Brooklyn woman was arraigned on Friday on charges that used the identities of several patients at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset to make purchases worth thousands of dollars at various department store.
Latoya Talbert, 24, was charged in Nassau County Court with felony counts of grand larceny, identity theft and scheme to defraud, and a misdemeanor count of unlawful possession of personal identification, prosecutors said.
“This defendant took advantage of vulnerable hospital patients in a scheme to make thousands of dollars of purchases based on the good credit of others,” Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice said. “Though she tried to evade justice, she will now have to face the consequences of her deceitful actions.”
Talbert was arrested in June 2011 after she was found to have tried to make a purchase at the Bloomingdales store in the Roosevelt Field Mall using a stolen identity, prosecutors said. After failing to appear at a court hearing that September, a warrant was issued for her arrest.
Talbert last week was arrested in Virginia for an undisclosed traffic violation and was then taken into custody in New York on her arrest warrant, prosecutors said. She was then offered the opportunity to voluntarily appear in court in new York, rather than face extradition there.
Prosecutors said Talbert had been working with an identity theft ring since 2011 that stole the identities of North Shore patients to open instant credit accounts in their names and make purchases at department stores like Macy’s and Target.
Two other people have been convicted in Nassau County for their involvement in the identity theft ring, prosecutors said, while others have in Queens, Manhattan, New Jersey and Connecticut, prosecutors said.
