NY Nurse Arrested After Making $1.5M Off Of Fake Vaccination Cards In Just Three Months
Side hustle gone wrong: A Long Island pediatric nurse practitioner and her employee were recently busted after allegedly making $1.5 million from selling fake COVID-19 vaccine cards. Her NYPD officer husband is also reportedly facing an internal probe for his potential involvement.
According to the Daily Mail, Nurse practitioner Julie DeVuono, who owns Wild Child Pediatrics Healthcare on Long Island, and her employee Marissa Urraro, 44, a practical nurse, were caught after undercover detectives obtained fake vaccination cards from them “on one or more occasions.”
CBS News reports that DeVuono was allegedly charging $220 for adults and $85 for children to enter falsified information to the New York State Immunization Information System. Despite receiving vaccines and syringes being sent to the practice from the government, patients never received a vaccine. Just within three months, they made $1.5 million, the news site notes.
Police searched the DeVuono’s home in Amityville, where they found $900,000 in cash. Some of it was found in NYPD-issued helmet bags and because of that, it drew suspicion to her husband Derin, a police officer at Brooklyn’s 60th Precinct.
So far, both nurse practitioners have been charged with forgery and DeVuono for offering a false instrument for filing. They pleaded guilty at their arraignment hearing on Friday and they were both released without bail. Meanwhile, Derin is now reportedly under an internal investigation to see if he was involved in his wife’s fraudulent business. In 2020.
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