California man sentenced to three years in prison for stealing hospital patient information for PUA benefits

On Friday, a California man was sentenced to three years in prison for using his position as a hospital clerk to steal patient information and use it to fraudulently apply for pandemic unemployment assistance.

Beginning in August 2020, Matthew Lombardo, now 54, began obtaining confidential patient information and then transmitted that information to an anonymous co-defendant who used the information to fraudulently apply for PUA benefits through the California Unemployment System.

Text messages cited in court showed Lombardo and co-conspirators targeting vulnerable victims. In a message sent on Aug. 22, 2020, Lombardo asked, “This man died a few hours ago. How many names do you need?” according to the Justice Department.

The Justice Department has not disclosed how much money the co-conspirators were able to steal.

But the deceased was not suitable for fraud, the co-conspirator replied, writing, “Find someone who is still alive…a person under the age of 55 who is out of the country.”

Lombardo was fired by SH Scripps Medical System in April 2021. In the fall of 2022, Mr. Lombardo pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, one count of using confidential health information for personal gain, and two counts of aggravated identity theft.