Medical assistant steals patients’ identities to buy car, rent home, WA officials say
A medical assistant faces charges after using patient records to rent at least one apartment and to buy at least one car, officials said.
Clara Anne Kitchen accessed 39 patients’ personal information in 2019 and used it to buy two cars and rent three apartments, the Washington State Department of Health said in a news release on Tuesday, Dec. 7. Prosecutors, however, listed only one car and one apartment in court documents.
The burden of proof required for criminal charges may be different than the evidence needed for the health department to take “action against a provider’s license,” the health agency told McClatchy News.
The 37-year-old woman worked at Swedish Health Services’ Sand Point Primary Care Clinic in Seattle as a medical assistant for 13 months, prosecutors said in the probable cause statement.
Her license was suspended in September 2021, the health department said.
An attorney for Kitchen did not immediately respond to a McClatchy News request for comment.
Kitchen accessed patients’ Social Security numbers and their date of birth, targeting women in their 20s and 30s who looked like her and older patients in their 70s, 80s and 90s, the statement says.
Prosecutors said she rented an apartment in Lynnwood under a patient’s name on Sept. 24, 2019, and didn’t pay the rent.
An investigation led by the state health department found she also rented two apartments in Everett. She didn’t pay rent for either place and racked up charges as high as $7,000 for each apartment, according to the health department’s statement of charges.
In October 2019, she bought a Mazda online and had the vehicle shipped to the Lynnwood apartment, documents show.
Kitchen also bought a car valued at $51,673 in July 2019, according to the statement of charges.
The two women whose identities were used for the Lynnwood apartment and the Mazda told police they didn’t purchase the car or rent the apartment, prosecutors said in the court documents.
Officers discovered a license plate registered in Kitchen’s name for a 2017 Audi on the Mazda, the statement says. Medications belonging to Kitchen were found in the apartment she rented in another person’s name.
Kitchen was arrested on Dec. 27, 2019.
She was charged with second-degree identity theft, first-degree identity theft and theft of a motor vehicle.
A jury trial will be held for Kitchen on Jan. 14, 2022.
