Feds Investigating Piles Of Patient Files Left Behind Shuttered Chatham Medical Center
CHICAGO (CBS) -- After piles of patient medical files were dumped in a lot for anyone to see, the feds are investigating, and victims worry their information was compromised.
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Ronald Carter is retired from the Army and now living in a veterans' residence on the South Side.
CBS 2 tracked him down after finding a piece of paper with his most sensitive information on it behind Chatham's shuttered Medical Professional Home Healthcare Center.
Carter's name and information is on the sheet, and so are the names of 13 others. It was just part of the debris from hundreds of medical files left dumped in a lot near 79th and King Drive.
"Yeah, I'm concerned," Carter said when told his information was found in an alley. "Somebody could get my stuff and take it somewhere and mess me up."
After a call to the alderman last week, city crews removed the files. The city has said it securely stored the files, but the medical information breach has sparked the interest of federal investigators.
The FBI is interested in talking with the man currently renting the property; and the attorney for the building's former owner, Carmen Dooley, said he's spoken with someone from the United States Attorney's Office.
They're possibly trying to determine who dumped the files and when. Dooley lost the building in foreclosure last fall.
A spokesperson for M&T Bank, which took ownership of the building after its foreclosure, recently told CBS 2 they were still pursuing legal action regarding the building and never made any mention of medical files dumped in the back lot.
But Leonard Stewart, the man who has been renting the property, said those files had been there for almost a year.
November 2018 pictures on Google Maps back Stewart's claim that he inherited the mess and was slowly trying to dispose of the files himself.
Dooley's attorney had no further comment.
Adding to the list of questions is why Carter's information was even there in the first place.
He said he's never had home health care.
"I've never been there before," he said.
Carter also said someone took out a credit card in his name last year, but it's not known if that is related to this breach.
A woman who was also on the list said she has no idea why the medical center would have had her information either.
Steward said a relative of his just bought that property at a bank auction Wednesday.