Former hospital IT worker pleads guilty to 3-decade identity theft that led to his victim being jailed

A man who previously worked as a high-level IT administrator for an Iowa hospital has been convicted in a meticulous and convoluted identity theft scheme that went on for more than three decades, eventually causing his victim's wrongful imprisonment, authorities said.  

William Woods was homeless and living in Los Angeles in 2019, when he learned that someone was racking up debt using his name. But when he reported his concerns to the branch manager of a bank, he wound up spending nearly two years locked up, accused of identity theft himself. As he continued to insist he was Woods in a desperate effort to clear his name, he was even sent to a state mental hospital and drugged, court records show.

Finally, last week, the former hospital administrator at University of Iowa hospital, who had assumed Woods' identity for decades, pleaded guilty to two federal charges.