Clerk at Dana-Farber guilty of identity theft

A clerk at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute illegally accessed patients' records and used their personal information to buy cellphones, run up bills, and damage their credit records, a Suffolk Superior Court jury found this week.

After a three-day trial, the jury deliberated for little more than three hours Wednesday before convicting Marlene Honore, 29, of Woonsocket, R.I., of six counts of identity fraud, prosecutors and her lawyer said yesterday.

Two of the counts were for similar crimes she committed while working at Logan Airport, where she stole the identities of an airport employee and the woman's daughter, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors tried Honore for 12 counts of identity fraud and four counts of larceny, her lawyer said.

She was acquitted of the other charges.

''The victimization of patients by hospital employees is an egregious breach of trust," Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said in a statement.

''More people are victimized by identity fraud than almost any other crime, and, unfortunately, most don't even know they've been targeted until too late."

Honore's Boston-based lawyer, Bruce W. Carroll, said his client intends to appeal the verdict. His defense, he said, was to try to show that Honore's primary accuser -- her former roommate, Nadege Phillippe -- was culpable and acting on a grudge. Phillippe could not be reached yesterday.

''We're disappointed," Carroll said.

''It's our feeling that the Commonwealth didn't sustain its burden of establishing proof beyond a reasonable doubt, and the primary accuser was clearly shown to be untruthful, unreliable, and a manipulator."

Prosecutors said Honore, while working for a temp agency between 1999 and 2000, used her position as a registration clerk at Dana-Farber to acquire the records of four patients illegally, using information including birth dates and Social Security numbers to buy cellphones and cellphone services for which she never paid. They did not release the names of the victims.

In addition to damaging their credit records, prosecutors said, Honore left about $4,000 in bills.

Prosecutors also presented evidence that in 1999, while working for two limousine companies at Logan Airport, Honore stole unidentified materials from the purse of a woman who worked for now-defunct Air Atlantic. She used that information to obtain cellphone service in that woman's name and the woman's daughter's name, prosecutors said.

The trial took five years because of delays in discovery and attorney changes, prosecutors said.

Honore is on pretrial probation until a Suffolk Superior Court judge sentences her on June 28. She faces a maximum sentence of 15 years in jail.