A former hospital administrator has pleaded guilty to selling information from the medical records of celebrities to a tabloid newspaper, including a story that the former Charlie's Angels star Farrah Fawcett was suffering from cancer.

Lawanda Jackson, 49, faces a maximum jail term of 10 years and a $250,000 fine when she is sentenced in May for violating medical privacy law after selling information to the National Enquirer.

The US District Court in Los Angeles heard how Jackson worked for 32 years as an administrative specialist at the UCLA Medical Centre, one of the top American hospitals. In recent years she had begun using her supervisor's password to access medical records inappropriately.

Among the records breached were those belonging to Fawcett, Britney Spears and Maria Shriver, who is married to the California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The supermarket tabloid deposited cheques totalling at least $4,600 into her husband's bank account beginning in 2006. Jackson resigned in 2007 before she could be fired.

Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the US attorney's office, said that no charges had been filed against the Enquirer or any other publications, but that the role of the media is part of the investigation into the privacy breaches.

“Certainly there is possible culpability at media outlets if we can determine that they were knowingly paying for the illegal access of celebrity files,” Mr Mrozek said.

The Los Angeles Times first reported that UCLA employees had pried into the medical records of prominent patients in April, resulting in six state public health investigation reports.

Those reports found that a total of 1,041 patients had their records inappropriately accessed at UCLA medical facilities since 2003, and that 165 hospital employees - from doctors to orderlies - were disciplined through firings, suspensions and warnings.

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