A hospital due diligence disaster is unfolding.
Warning: That dancing nurse pushing vaccines and risky medicine on you may not be legit.
From 2017 until 2022, over seven thousand people knowingly purchased fake nursing degrees and transcripts from several online schools. Many of those fake degrees and transcripts were used to obtain nursing licenses across the country. Those nursing licenses turned into jobs.
The three ‘schools’ have allegedly been shut down. In January the Department of Justice announced charges against 25 individuals operating the scheme to provide the fake documents for fees upwards of $15,000 each. The results? An alleged 114 million dollar conspiracy which was devastating to the nursing industry.
The schools in question were spread across multiple states. They were:
- Siena College
- Palm Beach School of Nursing
- Sacred Heart International Institute
According to court documents these fraudulent degrees allowed the purchasers or co-conspirators to violate laws related to minimum training requirements for nurses. Bypassing training with forged documents allowed the fake nurses to skip training and apply for licenses in multiple states.
Approximately 39 states, including Florida and Texas, have enacted Nurse Licensure Compact legislation. The Nurse Licensure Compact_required that every RN or LPNNN graduate from a board-approved RN or LPNNN prelicensure education program. Each state’s nursing board governed the approval of nursing education programs.
US 23-60010-CR-SMITHN ALLE
USCD Southern District of FLorida
Why is the DOJ covering for criminals (again)?
Many of these degrees were used to obtain nursing licenses. How many? We’re not sure. The nurses identified are not being exposed and their hospitals are not being exposed either. For example, according to the Kentucky Board of Nursing, only ONE nurse obtained a license in the state using fake credentials, and even when identified, the board could do nothing until a hearing was held. As WHAS11 reports:
“General Counsel to the Kentucky Board of Nursing Jeffrey Prather confirms outside of an emergency suspension using evidence of an immediate threat or harm to the public, the board cannot suspend a license until there is a hearing. He said the investigation is on-going.”
According to Facebook blogger “Nurse Erica”, the news was devastating to her industry. As stated on her Facebook video post she made on the topic “The individual states could prosecute the fake nurses. Do I think they’re going to? Probably not! Because that in turn means that the hospitals hold accountability because they did not ensure the licensure and we all know corruption abounds and they’re not going to let the hospitals take the fall for this, right?”
Erica followed up by stating “Make no mistake, it is absolutely illegal to impersonate a medical professional. For anyone suggesting that the fake nurses are somehow victims in this, STOP. There’s no way that they thought they were paying for nursing school. They knew when they didn’t go to classes and they were handed fake transcripts…come on. They are not victims, they are criminals and they all need to be charged.”
“This is probably one of the most brazen schemes that I’ve seen. And it does shock the mind,”
Omar Perez Aybar, Special Agent in Charge, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services – Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG), via ABC News
An Industry In Crisis
The nursing industry has been under scrutiny for complying without question to vaccine mandates, attacking nurses who speak out about vaccine coercion, and revelations of HIPAA violations by nurses who went into social media platforms and bragged about improper care of patients and sharing images of patients without consent. The result has been a hiring squeeze made worse by hospitals firing good nurses who refused to comply with mandates. Now we find out these same hospitals may have hired nurses without proper background checks.
It makes you wonder, are hospitals more interested in how well the nurses dance over medical qualifications? Why aren’t we being told who these degrees were sold to?
The charging documents can be view below.
