A former employee with the American Red Cross' St. Louis chapter - who had access to the Social Security numbers of 1 million people - has been indicted by a federal grand jury.
Lonnetta Shannell Medcalf, 20, of St. Louis, is facing three counts of aggravated identity theft and a count of credit card fraud, the Belleville News-Democrat reported on Monday.
Medcalf was a telephone worker at the Red Cross branch, where, with the job of calling former donors to urge them to give blood again, she had access to past donors’ Social Security numbers, according to the report.
Medcalf was fired in March by the Red Cross after a police investigation, according to the report.
Medcalf had opened credit card accounts with the name of three victims, U.S. Attorney Catherine Hanaway said, according to the News-Democrat.
An American Red Cross spokesperson could not immediately be reached for comment.
The Red Cross was the victim of several swindle websites after the Hurricane Katrina disaster last year.
The FBI investigated several reports of fraudulent sites pretending to be charitable organizations collecting money for hurricane victims.
Earlier this week, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs said in a statement that the personal information of as many as 26.5 million veterans was stolen from the home of a department employee who violated government policy by leaving the office with the data.
