Former Suffolk nurse who falsified COVID-19 vaccine cards hit with historic $544K state penalty
The new $544,000 civil penalty is in addition to the more than $1.2 million she was previously ordered to forfeit.
More Stories
A Suffolk County nurse practitioner has been ordered to pay a $544,000 civil penalty after state health officials determined she falsified vaccination records for 162 children.
The penalty is the largest ever imposed for vaccination fraud in the agency's 125-year history, according to the New York State Department of Health.
State officials say Julie DeVuono, of Wild Child Pediatric Healthcare in Amityville, entered false information into the New York State Immunization Information System, claiming hundreds of routine childhood vaccinations had been administered when they had not.
The fraudulent records involved children from Long Island, the Hudson Valley and New York City areas between November 2019 and January 2022, according to the Department of Health.
The scheme included charging $85 to $220 per entry into the state database, of which she profited $1.5 million in three months.
Because of the false records made, state health officials have spent the past two years identifying and removing inaccurate immunization records from the database.
The civil penalty stems from the same investigation that led to DeVuono's arrest in January 2022 in connection with a large-scale COVID-19 vaccination card fraud operation.
DeVuono pleaded guilty to criminal charges in September 2023 and was sentenced in June 2024. As part of her plea agreement, she surrendered her nursing licenses and agreed to forfeit more than $1.2 million in proceeds tied to the scheme.
She is currently serving a five-year probation sentence.
The new $544,000 civil penalty is in addition to the more than $1.2 million she was previously ordered to forfeit.
Investigators found that DeVuono falsified records for numerous required childhood immunizations, including measles, mumps and rubella, polio, hepatitis B, diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis, chickenpox, among others.
Many of the vaccines are required for children attending daycare, pre-kindergarten and school in New York.
