In January, a woman who worked at the University of Maryland Medical Center got an unsettling phone call from the FBI.

The agents told her that a coworker at the Baltimore hospital had hacked into her personal networks and stolen photos of her breastfeeding and private pictures of her taken by her husband, she said in court records.

She said the agents also told her that the coworker had hacked into her home surveillance system to spy on her family and record them, even in her bedroom.

The woman identified as “Jane Doe 7″ made these allegations in a lawsuit filed Wednesday in Baltimore Circuit Court. She’s accusing the hospital and the University of Maryland Medical System of negligence for failing to block the hacks or to take action once officials detected suspicious activity on the computers.

Advertise with us

“Defendants’ failure to take reasonable, readily available measures to protect its employees irreparably destroyed their sense of security, safety, intimacy and well-being,” her attorneys wrote in the lawsuit.

The lawsuit brings the latest allegations against the hospital’s former pharmacist Matthew Bathula. At least seven women have accused Bathula of a decade-long campaign of cybervoyeurism, alleging in court records that he stole logins and passwords to access their private photos and home security systems.

He’s also accused of activating the webcams within hospital exam rooms to watch female coworkers undress and pump breast milk.

Six women filed a class-action lawsuit against the hospital system in March. A seventh woman filed a separate lawsuit this week because the class-action case has proceeded slowly and she wanted to push the matter forward, said Krishan Zaveri, her attorney.

Bathula has not responded to the allegations in court records or through his attorney.

Advertise with us

Paulette M. Pagán, his attorney, has previously declined to comment. She did not respond Thursday to emails or a phone call.

In an email, Michael Schwartzberg, a hospital system spokesman, called the alleged conduct “contrary to every value of our organization and a violation of the trust of the individual’s colleagues.

“The employee was terminated for violation of our policies, and we have been cooperating with law enforcement,” he wrote.

Bathula has not been charged with a crime. Hospital system officials have been working with the FBI and federal prosecutors for several months as part of an ongoing investigation, Schwartzberg has said.

In June, state regulators suspended Bathula’s license to practice pharmacy.

Advertise with us

The women are alleging that hospital security officials should have known Bathula was using his electronic badge to swipe into rooms and tamper with the computers where he had no legitimate business.

He used this unfettered access to install keystroke loggers onto hundreds of hospital computers over the course of about a decade, according to the lawsuits. Keystroke loggers come in software that can be secretly downloaded to record everything someone types, even passwords.

He used such tactics to access the home surveillance network of Jane Doe 7, according to her lawsuit.

“Bathula used her login information to access her cameras in real time, disable the light that would tell her that they were on, and actively surveil her and her family, including her minor child, in the privacy and sanctity of their home,” her attorneys wrote in the lawsuit.

The FBI agents told her that Bathula had stored photos and videos of her family on his servers, according to the lawsuit.

She also alleges that he spied on her family at a time when the hospital system had notice of a security breach, but had not yet placed Bathula on leave. She’s asking for a jury trial.