Pamela Rhim-Grant, Identity Theft, Florida 2014

A former food service manager in Miami-Dade County, Florida, has been sentenced for her role in a massive identity theft scheme that compromised the personal information of hundreds of students.

Pamela Rhim-Grant, 40, was sentenced to 81 months in prison, to be followed by two years of supervised release, for her involvement in a scheme that saw her and her co-conspirators obtain student personal identifying information (PII) from the Miami-Dade Public Schools’ Integrated Student Information System (ISIS) database.

Rhim-Grant, who had network computer access to the ISIS database through her position as a food service manager at Horace Mann Middle School, accessed the database and printed student information sheets containing the PII from October 2012 through January 21, 2014. She was paid $10 per student’s PII in either cash or gift cards.

According to court documents, approximately 400 students’ PII were fraudulently accessed and delivered to her co-conspirators, including Eugene Moss, 33, and Nydia Nelson, 30, both of Miami. Moss and Nelson used the student PII to file income tax returns seeking fraudulent refunds, which were directed either to prepaid debit cards or accounts controlled by Nelson.

Rhim-Grant and her co-conspirators were each charged with one count of computer fraud, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1030, and one count of aggravated identity theft, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1028A.

The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Frank R. Maderal, and commended the investigative efforts of the FBI, IRS-CI, and the Miami-Dade Schools Police Department.

Rhim-Grant was ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $87,736.00.

Nydia Nelson, 30, of Miami, is scheduled to be sentenced on July 25, 2014, before U.S. District Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga. Eugene Moss, 33, of Miami, was sentenced to 70 months in prison, to be followed by two years of supervised release.

Source: https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdfl/pr/food-service-manager-and-co-defendant-sentenced-identity-theft-scheme-involving-miami