A former lab worker at the Veterans Hospital in Madison used information stolen from VA records , from mail stolen from her neighbors and information purchased on the Internet to obtain credit cards and access other people 's checking accounts , according to criminal charges filed this week . Elizabeth Feng , 23 , of Madison , was charged Thursday with 17 counts of identity theft , two counts of misdemeanor theft and two counts of unauthorized opening of mail in the scheme , which began to unravel on May 30 when her boyfriend tried to make a legitimate payment on some parking tickets at the Madison Police Department . Police have issued a warrant for Feng , who was also a UW - Madison student at the time . According to a criminal complaint filed Thursday , the boyfriend went to pay parking tickets after his car had been impounded , only to be told that he had to pay in cash because fraudulent payments had been made for tickets on his car in the past . Police staff had found that the earlier citations were paid using the checking account information of people who lived in New Jersey , Vermont , Connecticut and Mississippi , and that one of those people had contacted police about the fraud , the complaint states . The man told police the earlier payments had been made by his girlfriend , Feng , the complaint states . According to the complaint : Contacted by police , Feng at first admitted to using a " random person 's account " a couple of times , from information she found on a website . But pressed further , she admitted taking mail belonging to other people in her apartment building in the 400 block of West Dayton Street , not cashing personal checks sent to her neighbors but using account number and bank routing information on them to pay her boyfriend 's parking tickets online . Among the items taken from Feng 's neighbors ' mail were also packages of goods such as a wine opener , clothing and a cutting board and knife . Feng said she threw most of that stuff away . In her apartment , police found opened mail and boxes addressed to other people . Feng opened six credit card accounts using information for five patients stolen from the VA Hospital , where she worked . She had mail for the accounts addressed to the apartment of one of her neighbors , who told police he was shocked when informed that there were 16 credit cards in 14 names associated with his address . The man said that when he received mail that was n't addressed to him , he would drop it on the floor by the mailboxes . Police also found a large number of Capital One credit cards in Feng 's apartment and found the names on them matched a list of 15 names and Social Security numbers that police found on a document located on Feng 's computer . Two of VA Hospital patients had since died . The son of one of those men told police that on the day of his father 's funeral , his mother received a phone call from Capital One asking if his father had recently opened a credit card with them . Feng had worked as a medical assistant in the hospital 's pathology and lab department . She left her job on May 31 . The hospital 's lab manager told police that Feng would have had access to patient information including birth dates and Social Security numbers . ;