Virginia Beach, Va. – A former nurse aide for Sentara’s Virginia Beach General Hospital was sentenced to 81 months in prison for using patients’ personal information to submit fraudulent federal tax returns with the IRS.
They say 36-year-old Emmanuel Effiong and another aide, Festus Ighalo are originally from Nigeria and are now U.S. citizens. Officials say the two aides used their positions to obtain the personal information including dates of birth and social security numbers from thousands of patients. Many of them were from the Hampton Roads area.
They say the two then got help from others in the U.S. and in Nigeria and the information was used to submit the fraudulent tax returns. The two aides received tax refunds in the patients’ names.
The other aide, Ighalo, also pleaded guilty and is scheduled to be sentenced later this month.
