The Justice Department has sentenced a former medical records technician for the US Army after he was caught accessing personal information from US veterans and using the data to steal millions from benefits sites.
Fredrick Brown, a 40-year-old from Las Vegas, was sentenced to more than 12 years in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering charges.
Brown’s actions led to $1.5 million in losses after he targeted more than 3,300 members of the US military community through a multinational fraud ring.
Brown worked with four other people to defraud both service members, their dependents and civilians employed by the Department of Defense.
As a civilian medical records technician and administrator with the US Army at the 65th Medical Brigade, Yongsan Garrison in South Korea, Brown admitted to stealing names, Social Security numbers, military ID numbers, dates of birth and contact information for thousands of military members between July 2014 and September 2015.
While logged into the base’s electronic health records database, he took photos of his computer screen and sent the photos to Robert Wayne Boling Jr., who was based in the Philippines.
From there, Boling Jr. and others used the information to access DOD and Veterans Affairs benefits sites and steal millions of dollars.
“Rather than honoring those servicemembers and veterans who sacrifice for them, the defendant and his co-conspirators targeted and stole from these brave men and women in a years-long fraud scheme. Such conduct is an affront to the United States and will not be tolerated,” said the Justice Department’s Brian Boynton.
US Attorney Ashley Hoff noted that many of those targeted in the scheme were disabled or elderly because they receive more service-related benefits.
In addition to his prison sentence, Brown was ordered to pay $2,331,639.85 in restitution. The Justice Department said 34-year-old Trorice Crawford had also been charged in 2020 in connection to the crime.
