Hospital Clerk Arrested in Theft of Credit Cards : Crime: Worker at St. John’s in Oxnard is accused of using patients’ accounts to spend more than $10,000.

An emergency room clerk at St. John’s Regional Medical Center in Oxnard was charged Thursday with stealing credit cards from sick and injured patients, then running up more than $10,000 in bills before being caught.

Michelle Elaine Peralta, a 26-year-old Oxnard woman who worked at the medical center almost four years, has been fired as a result of her arrest, hospital officials said.

Peralta was booked at Ventura County Jail on 10 felony counts of using stolen credit cards, authorities said. But she was released on her own recognizance about 11:30 p.m. Wednesday without having to spend the night in jail, records show.

She is scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday in Ventura County Municipal Court.

Oxnard police investigators said Peralta, who has no prior criminal record as an adult, charged more than $10,000 worth of clothes at a number of upscale department stores throughout Ventura County.

“We’ve traced the stolen card purchases back to November of 1992,” said Detective Leonard Newcomb of the white-collar crimes unit. The 10 victims identified so far “all seemed to come in through the emergency room. That’s the only pattern.”

A number of stolen credit cards were found last month by someone police declined to identify, Newcomb said. The informant, who was not a hospital employee, alerted authorities to the suspected fraud and Peralta later turned herself in, he said.

“She knew that the arrest was imminent,” Newcomb said. “When I compiled all the evidence I needed for filing purposes, I simply called her up.”

Police said it is likely that more emergency room patients than those identified so far were similarly swindled, but detectives have not completed their investigation.

“We suspect that there probably are other victims,” Newcomb said. “There are others.”

Hospital officials said Thursday that Peralta was terminated within hours of her arrest, which came as a surprise to administrators.

“We had no indication that a problem like this was even occurring,” said spokeswoman Rita Schumacher. “Anything (criminal) that we’re aware of, we do thoroughly investigate.”

Peralta’s job duties called for her to search the personal belongings of patients who are unconscious when admitted to the emergency room, Schumacher said.

But none of the alleged victims ever complained to hospital security or administrators, she said.

“Nothing had been reported to the security department,” Schumacher said. “The people involved in this issue never reported any missing or stolen credit cards.”

Peralta did not return phone calls to her Oxnard home Thursday. But co-workers at the hospital emergency room described her as a diligent, hard-working employee.

“She was a very congenial person to work with,” said one colleague, who asked to remain unidentified. “It doesn’t seem like the kind of thing she would do.”

The thefts have prompted an internal investigation and a review of hospital rules, Schumacher said.

Under existing policy, if a patient is brought to the medical center unconscious, admitting room employees are directed to fish through the patient’s wallet or purse for identification or insurance forms, Schumacher said.

But the same policy also calls for cash and valuables to remain in the custody of at least two employees until properly sealed and locked up, she said.

“We make out a detailed report of the description of the valuables, then we secure it in an envelope,” said Schumacher, who said the rules governing the personal property of hospital patients would be tightened.

“We’re looking at the policy, we’re looking at procedures and we’re in the process of investigating it.”