ST. LOUIS _ A fake nurse who stole the identity of a real nurse spent three months working at a St. Louis hospital's ICU and with elderly psychiatric patients, charging documents filed in federal court claim.
Samantha L. Rivera, 35, has never been licensed as a registered nurse in any state and never graduated from nursing school, a May 10 indictment claims.
Rivera now faces charges of health care fraud and identity theft.
Rivera, who lived in New Mexico and St. Louis and now lives in Illinois, was in court for a brief hearing Friday.
U.S. Magistrate Judge John Bodenhausen told Rivera in court that lawyers don't yet know if New Mexico authorities want her held on charges issued last month there.
No lawyer has yet been permanently assigned to Rivera.
Online court records show she faces fraud, forgery and identity theft charges filed April 21.
Rivera worked at St. Alexius Hospital in St. Louis from Nov. 28, 2016, to Feb. 23, 2017, but the hospital did not extend her contract. The indictment does not say why, and the hospital's CEO did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment on the case.
Rivera was caught after she applied for another job with a nurse staffing company in Chicago, using some information from a real nurse in New Mexico, court records show.
The company learned that Rivera was not licensed in New Mexico, but had been disciplined by the Board of Nursing there and that her case had been referred to the New Mexico attorney general in April 2016.
Online records show she received the "maximum penalty to (an) unlicensed individual" of $1,000.
Investigators also learned that she did not graduate from the University of New Mexico or work at the hospital there, charging documents show.
Investigators have since learned that Rivera applied to Brown Mackie College in Albuquerque, falsely claiming she had a "master's degree in nursing from Georgetown University and had previously taught a pediatric nursing course at the University of New Mexico," the indictment says. Neither of these statements was true. She was hired in September 2015 as a full-time instructor in the college of applied science in nursing with an $80,000 salary. She held the job until December 2015, the indictment says.
The college is no longer accepting new students, its website says. A representative did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
In September 2016, Rivera applied for a job with ATC Healthcare Services, which provides health care professionals to hospitals and other facilities, the indictment says.
ATC placed her at St. Alexius, where she was assigned to the ICU and "Geropsych Unit," the indictment claims, and was responsible for "assessing patients, identifying changes in 'patients' conditions, performing medical treatments, and administering medications, including controlled substances."
