VA Clerk Stole More Than 1,000 VA Patient Identities, Police Say

LONG BEACH, CA – A Veterans Affairs clerk was arrested on suspicion of identity theft after the identities and personal information of more than 1,000 Veterans Affairs patients were discovered during a traffic stop at the VA campus in Long Beach, authorities said Friday. The Long Beach VA campus serves a large part of the Southland area, including Los Angeles and Orange Counties.

VA law enforcement officers spotted a personal vehicle Thursday with what appeared to be commercial license plates attached and ran a check of the plates, then stopped the driver when they determined the attached plates did not belong to the vehicle, according to Richard Beam of the VA Long Beach Health Care System.

While talking with the driver, an officer noticed an unlabeled pill container with various pills inside and conducted a search of the vehicle, Beam said.

A second search of the vehicle yielded private information for 1,028 VA patients, including names, birthdates and full Social Security numbers, as well as more than $1,000 worth of federal property, he said.

There is no indication any veterans identification information was being used fraudulently, but the VA will notify each of the potentially impacted veterans and provide a year's worth of credit monitoring services, Beam said.

City News Service and Patch staffer Emily Holland contributed to this post; Image via peterfactors/Shutterstock.com