Former Long Island nurse Julie DeVuono has been hit with a $544,000 fine by the New York State Department of Health. According to the agency, this is the largest civil penalty ever imposed for vaccination fraud in the department’s 125-year history.
The 53-year-old DeVuono, who owned the Wild Child Pediatric Center, pleaded guilty back in 2023 to forging documents and money laundering. Investigators revealed that during the pandemic, she operated a massive scheme, selling fake COVID cards to parents of 162 school-aged children.
The nurse received free vaccine doses from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) but threw them in the trash. Instead, she charged clients between $220 and $350 for adults and $85 for children in exchange for fake records. She used nearly $237,000 of the accumulated proceeds to pay off her home mortgage.
The court spared the former nurse prison time, sentencing her to five years of probation and 840 hours of community service. In addition, she has already forfeited $1.2 million to the state budget. New York State Health Commissioner James McDonald stated that the agency has zero tolerance for those who falsify vaccination records and, in doing so, endanger human lives.
