Identity theft suspect is tracked to hospital
By Times Staff Writer
Published November 5, 2005
ZEPHYRHILLS - A man wanted in Florida and Georgia, who authorities say has eluded capture for two years by assuming the identities of physicians and other successful professionals, has been tracked to East Pasco Medical Center, where he was admitted under yet another alias, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement reported Friday.
The investigation into 41-year-old Gregory Tyrone Doctor began in 2001, when he checked into a Tallahassee hotel under the name of an Atlanta physician and used the assumed persona to attract women he met at a local nightclub, an department news release says. He became romantically involved with at least two, the release said, and finessed an invitation to move in with one of them.
The release says he stole a check from the woman, then cashed it for $750 under the name of a cardiologist in South Carolina. Meanwhile, the release says, he lived comfortably on withdrawals from the Atlanta physician's bank accounts.
He was arrested in Thomasville, Ga., in 2002 on warrants accusing him of similar offenses in Georgia. When arrested, the release says, he presented an ID card in the name of a Florida superintendent of schools.
At the home of the woman he had taken up with in Tallahassee, the release says, investigators found drivers' licenses and ID cards from Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina and Missouri.
Doctor served time on the Georgia charges but was released before new charges were made against him.
He is wanted in Leon County on six counts of grand theft, six counts of uttering a forged instrument, two counts of bank fraud and two counts of criminal use of personal identification. Other warrants have been issued in Sumter, Pasco, Marion and Hernando counties, and in Georgia.
FDLE agents, working with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, tracked Doctor to the Zephyrhills hospital through government disability payments he was getting.
He was under guard at the hospital Friday, where he was being treated for a staph infection, FLDE spokesman Phil Kiracofe said, as well as other claimed ailments the legitimacy of which doctors were trying to determine.