Clerk At Navy Clinic Tapped Into Accounts At Navy Fed

LEXINGTON PARK, Md. – A front desk clerk at the Navy clinic at Patuxent River Naval Air Station was charged with stealing account information from Navy FCU members to drain as much as $50,000 from their accounts.

The federal investigators determined that most of the people whose personal information was stolen were "high-ranking officers." The credit union reimbursed affected members.

Seventeen clinic patients' personal information was stolen between November 2008 and May 2009. The information was used to access the patients' financial accounts during phone calls to the credit union's operators, according to authorities. The calls resulted in fraudulent fund transfers of $500 or less to Western Union, and the money was picked up at credit union branches in and around Washington, D.C., and as far away as South Carolina.

Donna Mason, a 41-year-old Lexington Park woman who worked as a clerk at the front desk of the clinic, is scheduled to face trial later this month on her theft charge. A bond hearing was held on a second suspect in the case, 43-year-old Marquette Ransom. Ransom previously has been convicted on credit-card theft and drug charges, before he was indicted in July for stealing from the credit union.

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