The pandemic has been costly to many people over the past two years. A couple of nurses might find that it will cost them their freedom for a little while.
Two Long Island nurses are being charged with forging COVID vaccination cards in a creative side hustle that made them over $1.5 million.
Here’s how they pulled it off. From November 2021 to January 2022, they allegedly forged cards. They charged $200 for adults and $85 for kids, and then they would input the information with the fake record into the New York State Immunization Information System database. They even created records for a couple of undercover detectives, which certainly put a damper on their scam.
Here’s what special agent Scott Lampert said in a statement.
“Forging COVID-19 vaccination cards and entering false information into the New York
State database used to track vaccination records puts the health and well-being of others at risk and undermines efforts to slow the spread of the COVID-19 virus.”
It was quite the lucrative business while it lasted. Officers searched the nurses’ homes and found $900,000 in cash lying around.
They are both being charged with one count of forgery in the second degree. One of the nurses is getting an additional charge of offering a false instrument for fill-in in the first degree.
Their timing was terrible. In January, New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed a bill that made this type of activity a crime.
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