URBANA — Patricia Castor of Mahomet fought back tears as she told a judge how her late mother lived in fear after her wallet was stolen by an employee of an Urbana hospital where she was a patient.

Within hours of her elderly mother's hospital admission in April 2008, Castor said, unauthorized charges were being made on her stolen credit cards.

"It very much affected her to the point she was scared to be at her home because the person who took her identification also had her home address," Castor said. "It made her feeble and scared to stay at home."

The wallet and identity thief was Karen Dooley, 30, of Champaign, a "transporter" for Provena Covenant Medical Center whose job was to move patients around the hospital. Castor's mother was just one of many elderly hospital patients victimized by Dooley, who had access to their records.

On Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Michael McCuskey sentenced Dooley to eight years in federal prison, the maximum she could have received under federal sentencing guidelines. She also was ordered to pay just over $20,000 in restitution.

Her only prior conviction was for misdemeanor theft for shoplifting in December 2009 in Champaign — an offense she committed after she had been charged with the multiple federal offenses to which she pleaded guilty in February 2011.

Those included aggravated identity theft; food stamp, mail and Social Security fraud; theft of government funds; and access device fraud. The charges alleged criminal activity that started in December 2005 and continued to November 2010.

The identity theft allegations stemmed from a sophisticated scheme she had for stealing names, dates of birth and Social Security numbers, mostly from people she had contact with at Covenant in 2007 and 2008. She also admitted that she continued to collect food stamps and Social Security disability at a time when she was employed, defrauding the government out of money.

Her estranged husband, Michael Jefferies, 34, is currently serving a 27-month sentence in the federal penitentiary for credit card fraud and aggravated identity theft. He pleaded guilty in December and was sentenced in April.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Ronda Coleman described Dooley as the "ringleader" and Jefferies as a recipient of the benefits they both received from what she stole.

"This wasn't a person doing this to get by," Coleman said. "She used it to buy toys to enhance her way of life."

Castor was one of several witnesses Coleman called to give McCuskey a broader picture of the havoc that Dooley wreaked on scores of unsuspecting victims, some of whom Coleman said may still not know that Dooley had their personal information.

Dooley used the stolen identities not only to obtain utilities for her home in the 1200 block of North Hickory Street, Champaign, but also to buy gasoline and items such as a 42-inch plasma screen television, cameras, wristwatches, Xbox games and an elliptical machine, Coleman said.

Champaign police detective Pat Kelly testified those items were found in a court-ordered search of Dooley's home done in June 2008.

More shocking to the veteran white-collar crime detective was a lockbox he found containing scraps of paper with names and personal identifiers of Covenant patients, as well as a composition book in which Dooley kept copious notes on what accounts had been opened in different names.

Kelly said he found at least 100 different names in Dooley's home, including a credit card bill belonging to a surgeon who received his personal mail at Covenant and an application from a woman who wanted to volunteer at the hospital.

Kelly also learned that Dooley had used Castor's mother's credit card to pay for access to an Internet search site that gave her personal information on other people who apparently weren't hospital patients.

Dooley often applied for credit cards online, Kelly said, even doing so on a computer at Covenant during her work shift. And after receiving them, she racked up thousands in unauthorized — and unpaid — charges.

Both Kelly and fellow Champaign police detective Joe Johnston were involved in the investigation of Dooley, which branched out to include the Secret Service because of the breadth of her identity theft.

Johnston began investigating Dooley in September 2007 when a Texas woman called to report that her daughter, a University of Illinois student living in Spain, was receiving bills for accounts she had never opened. Johnston discovered eight different accounts in the young woman's name with more than $6,000 in charges.

As Johnston was testifying, McCuskey interrupted to ask if the full extent of Dooley's fraud had been uncovered.

"I don't believe so. No," Johnston responded.

Secret Service Special Agent Matt McWilliams, who got involved in the investigation in August 2008, said Dooley admitted to him that she scanned her own Social Security card and driver's license into her computer and used photo editing software to put in other people's information.

McWilliams said that in an April 2009 interview with Dooley, he asked her why she had so many names.

"She had collected them over the years just in case she got behind in her bills," he testified.

Kelly said he found a past-due Ameren IP bill for more than $3,000 in Dooley's name from April 2006.

Arguing for the eight-year sentence, Coleman hammered on Dooley's greed and her choice of victims.

"She took advantage of her position at the hospital and preyed on people at their most vulnerable," Coleman said, noting that Dooley had applied for credit cards in one woman's name a couple of days before and a couple days after her death.

Dooley's attorney, Assistant U.S. Public Defender John Taylor, argued for a sentence of four years, calling his client remorseful and her crime nonviolent.

"We don't dispute for one moment the damage done to these victims. It is a holy hell of paperwork," he said.

Dooley apologized and said she hoped her victims could accept her apologies.

"I intend to grow from these horrible mistakes," she said.

McCuskey ordered that Dooley, who has been free on bond since her arrest in November 2009, be taken into custody immediately. He warned her a week ago when her sentencing hearing began that she should make arrangements for the care of her three children, ages 12, 9 and 4, two of whom are autistic.

Besides Champaign police and the Secret Service, others involved in the case were investigators for the Social Security Administration, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Postal Service.