First, I'm sorry for the huge explanation. My question is: can I be prosecuted criminally for violating Hipaa, and can I be prosecuted criminally for identity theft.

Over the last several months, I have been made to feel discriminated against by my job. I am a Human Resources coordinator who was in charge of Leaves of Absences and Benefits. Since the initial incident things have gotten worse and worse. I was once touted a star performer, and over the last few months -since the incident that started discrimination- have been in one negative situation after another, it's like the hits just keep coming. Last week my duties for Leaves Administration and Benefits were taken away from me because of some things that went wrong. Most of the situations involved my administration of Leaves and/or benefits.

I mentioned a couple weeks ago in (yet another) "talk" that I had really felt discriminated against and it was hard to stay positive in such a negative environment. I said I was going to contact our EAP and that I made an appointment with my doctor for this week. By the time I went to see my doctor yesterday, I was so stressed and overhwhelmed with anxiety that I was a ball of nerves and just needed to get out of the situation. I wasn't sure if my doctor would approve my leave request unless I could show him documentation of the situations that had led to this point. All I could think about was being able to support my claim for work related mental stress so that I could take some leave and get better.

I forwarded emails I had received from work regarding situations I remembered causing stress or anxiety. I wasn't even thinking about Hipaa or business conduct or proprietary information. I was only thinking of supporting my claim to my doctor. I went to the doctor and told my story and he immediately excused me and put me on leave yesterday, without requesting any information (I didn't even tell him I had emailed myself anything).

I faxed my office the necessary documents and called and left my supervisor a voice mail explaining that my doctor had put me on leave, that I faxed the documents, and to please send me the rest of the LOA packet.A couple hours later I went to see a psychologist via my EAP. I called again and left another voice mail for my supervisor this morning.

Later this afternoon I got a phone call from my manager, supervisor, center manager, and loss prevention manager. My manager said she had to go to my computer this morning because she knew I would be out, and "noticed" a bunch of emails forwarded to my personal email account and wanted to know why. She informed me that these emails had employee's social security numbers and LOA information in them, and that I violated Hipaa. I told her my reason was that I wanted to make sure I could support my medical condition claim to my doctor if he needed it. They said my reason didn't make sense, to which I responded that it was still my reason. I also told them that I didn't realize the emails had SSN's in them, and that it wasn't my intent to send those. I just wanted to make sure I could show my doctor the situations that caused my stress and anxiety (which has had a physical impact on my health). The loss prevention manager said it could also be an issue of identity theft. I stated that was never my intention. My manager informed me that this was a huge deal and she had to escalate it to corporate for an investigation.

I am supposed to get a phone call in the morning with the findings. My company is self insured, so I know it is a "covered entity" ( I learned that this afternoon when I started researching after the phone call). I understand that emailing myself was a bad choice. I was stressed out and not thinking about hipaa or anything else other than being able to support my claim of a stressful work environment that impacted my health. I haven't even logged into my personal email account for days. Definitely not since at least the day before I emailed myself. Am I going to jail?

You might not be going to jail but I do see you unemployed. Sending yourself those emails was very wrong as it was interpreted as identity theft or potential identity theft.

I will go that you did not vilate the law, but did violate company policy, You did not give this info to anyone

I take home a computer as do many that contain all sorts of personal data on people, From my work in insurance my home files have tons of info on medical, but they are secured and not give out.

And ID theft, did you take this info and pretend to be someone else, no. then it is not ID theft.

You may have taken company property.

I would say your time at this company is very short, so you need to find a new job as soon as possible.

I am sure by now, they have went though every item in your computer and desk and files for any issue there could be.

But Hippa and ID theft, no

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), doesn't have criminal penalties, so relax. Since you indicate that you just started researching HIPAA, and that your company is a covered entity, a possible defense to your getting fired might be inadequate training on the company's part.
If I were you I would get myself a good employment lawyer.

HIPAA does not involve criminal penalties. I think you behaved badly and whether someone else will take legal action against you remains to be seen.

HIPAA does not cover this.

If you cannot handle stress, you really should not be in your current job. I would guess your employer will feel that same way.