A former pediatric nurse practitioner in New York who falsified vaccination records for over 100 school-age children was hit with a record-breaking $544,000 civil penalty on Thursday, which the state’s Department of Health called “historic,” saying it is the largest civil penalty it has imposed for vaccination fraud.
“Vaccines are the best protection against serious preventable diseases, and the New York State Department of Health has zero tolerance for those that misrepresent or falsify vaccination records as these acts put lives in jeopardy,” State Health Commissioner Dr. James McDonald said in a press release.
Julie DeVuono was arrested in 2022 alongside Marissa Urrao and accused of charging clients $220 to $350 for an adult vaccination record card and $85 for a child’s one through her practice, as part of a large-scale COVID-19 and childhood vaccination scheme.
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The health department says that, between November 2019 and January 2022, she falsified records for patients from Long Island and the Hudson Valley, along with children from New York City. Investigators determined she administered at least one false vaccine to 162 different pediatric patients.
These falsified records covered a wide range of vaccinations including those for tetanus, hepatitis B, measles, mumps and polio.
DeVuono was sentenced in a criminal case related to the scheme in June 2024, after pleading guilty to charges of money laundering, forgery and offering a false instrument in 2023. She is currently serving a five-year probationary sentence. As part of her plea agreement, DeVuono surrendered her nursing licenses and forfeited more than $1.2 million of the proceeds she made from the scheme.
The state’s health department deleted the false immunization information that DeVuono submitted over the past two school years, and parents who had brought their children to the former nurse’s practice were required to provide proof of immunizations from other providers.
“Make no mistake, the Department will investigate and hold those accountable who so brazenly undermine our public health system and endanger the health and safety of our communities,” McDonald said.