FBI: Fla. ED Employee Provided Patient Data for Pay
Federal authorities say a Central Florida man who acted as an agent for chiropractic clinics and a local injury hotline paid a hospital employee to illegally access patient information.
Sergei Kusyakov, 38, was recently arrested on a federal count of disclosure of prohibited information.
Agents earlier arrested a suspected co-defendant in the case, Dale Munroe, who used to work in the emergency department at Florida Hospital's Celebration branch.
Munroe was fired in July 2011 after officials learned he accessed the medical records of a Florida Hospital doctor who was fatally shot in a hospital parking garage last year, court records show.
Officials then discovered Munroe accessed more than 763,000 records for patients treated at multiple Florida Hospital locations.
Investigators said Munroe focused primarily on patients who were in automobile accidents. Of the patient records Munroe accessed, authorities found more than 12,000 that he inappropriately reviewed in detail.
Some of those patients began receiving phone calls within a week of their hospital visit, from someone who offered them a lawyer or chiropractor referral. The caller knew details about the injury beyond what would be publicly known, court records show.
Investigators linked Munroe to Kusyakov through telephone records and money.
Agents said after Munroe reviewed a patient's data, he called Kusyakov, who would then call someone else who eventually called the patient.
The FBI also tracked payments from Kusyakov to Munroe, and from Kusyakov's wife to Munroe's wife, records show.
On Wednesday, an Orlando federal magistrate judge ordered Kusyakov to remain jailed in Seminole County.
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