By Karen Frantz
A South Ozone Park man who was accused of stealing personal information from doctors who were applying to work at a medical facility he was planning to open pleaded guilty to charges of identity theft in court last week, according to the Queens district attorney.
DA Richard Brown said 50-year-old Delloyd Hill, also known as Tom Hill, posed as a Harvard graduate and held job interviews for the facility. He then used the personal information he gathered from eight people, including six physicians, to open up lines of credit that were in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, Brown said.
“Sadly, this case underscores that even the most sophisticated and well-educated individuals are vulnerable to scams such as this,” he said in a statement.
A spokeswoman at the DA’s office said that although Hill was not a Harvard graduate, they believed he was actually planning on opening a medical facility.
Hill, who lives at 124-18 115th Ave., pleaded guilty Dec. 18 to identity theft in State Supreme Court, Brown said. The acting justice, Pauline Mullings, indicated she would hand down a two- to four-year prison sentence at Hill’s sentencing Jan. 8, according to the prosecutor.
Based on the criminal complaint, Hill took out three lines of credit with TCF Equipment Finance Inc., a company that finances medical equipment, using personal information from the physicians as well as his landlord and one other person between April and September. The combined lines of credit equaled more than $415,000, the DA said.
Brown also said Hill conned his landlord and another person into investing in his medical facility. He was able to make off with $35,000 from his landlord and $30,00 from the other individual, the prosecutor said.
New York is not the only place Hill is in trouble with the law. When he was arraigned in September, he was held on a fugitive warrant because of another criminal case pending against him in Newport News, Va., according to a statement from the DA’s office at the time. It was not clear what the nature of those charges were, but a spokeswoman with the Queens prosecutor’s office said if and once Hill finishes a prison sentence in New York, Newport News would have to make a request to have him extradited to face charges in Virginia.
Hill had also been charged in Queens with grand larceny, forgery and scheming to defraud. Those charges were dismissed when he pleaded guilty to committing identity theft, a press officer at the DA’s office said.
Reach reporter Karen Frantz by e-mail at kfrantz@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4538.
