Arkansas News Bureau
LITTLE ROCK — A physician and two former employees of the St. Vincent Health System pleaded guilty today to misdemeanor federal charges for accessing the medical records of slain television anchor Anne Pressly, the U.S. attorney’s office and FBI announced.
Dr. Jay Holland and Candida Griffin, both of Little Rock, and Sarah Elizabeth Miller of England, appeared separately before U.S. Magistrate Henry L. Jones Jr. Each pleaded to a misdemeanor violation of health information privacy provisions of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.
The three admitted to accessing a patient’s record without any legitimate purpose. Each faces up to a year in prison and-or a fine of up to $50,000. Sentencing has not been set.
Pressly, a morning anchor for Little Rock television station KATV, was found severely beaten in her Little Rock home on Oct. 20. She died five days later without regaining consciousness.
Police arrested Curtis Lavelle Vance on a capital murder charge Nov. 26.
Officials at St. Vincent Infirmary Medical Center suspended the hospital privileges of Holland, 56, for two weeks and required him to complete on-line HIPAA training.
St. Vincent fired Miller, 28, from her job as an account representative at the system’s Sherwood Campus and Griffin, 34, from her job as emergency room unit coordinator at the Little Rock hospital.
All three said today they accessed Pressly’s files out of curiosity.
“The HIPAA privacy protections are real, and we hope that through vigorous enforcement of HIPAA’s right-to-privacy protections and swift prosecution of those who violate HIPAA, we can deter those in the medical industry who have access to protected health information from searching others’ medical records merely to satisfy their own curiosity,” U.S. Attorney Jane Duke said.
