Long Island Nurse Who Pocketed $1.5M Selling Fake Vaccine Cards Hits Historic Fine

A Record Penalty Decades in the Making

A former New York nurse practitioner who earned roughly $1.5 million by selling fake COVID-19 vaccination cards now faces a record-setting $544,000 civil penalty — the largest ever levied by the New York State Department of Health for vaccination-related fraud. The fine, announced on July 9, caps a years-long case that exposed just how far one medical professional was willing to go to profit from a public health crisis.

State Health Commissioner Dr. James McDonald remarked, "This is the largest civil penalty imposed for vaccination fraud in the Department of Health's 125-year history." McDonald emphasized that vaccines are crucial for preventing serious diseases, expressing a firm stance against those who falsify vaccination records, as such acts can endanger lives.

How the Scheme Worked

Julie DeVuono was the owner of Wild Child Pediatric Healthcare, a pediatric practice in Amityville. The case first drew attention in 2022, when authorities accused DeVuono and an employee of selling fake COVID-19 vaccination cards and entering false information into the state immunization system. At 53, DeVuono pleaded guilty in 2023 to charges of forgery and money laundering.

DeVuono owned Wild Child Pediatric Center in Amityville, where she received 3,174 vaccine doses through the CDC. Instead of administering them, she charged clients $220 to $350 for adult vaccine cards and $85 for children's cards, often disposing of the actual vaccines. She allegedly funneled $236,980 from her fraudulent activities to pay off a mortgage on her home, which she shared with her husband, an NYPD officer.

DeVuono submitted false entries into the New York State Immunization Information System — the state's official vaccine registry — claiming she had administered routine childhood vaccines to 162 school-aged children between November 2019 and January 2022, when those shots never occurred. The fabricated records covered required school-entry immunizations, including diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis, hepatitis B, measles-mumps-rubella, polio, varicella, meningococcal, and pneumococcal formulations.

Real Consequences for Real Families

In 2024, the New York State Department of Health voided pediatric immunization records for approximately 135 children whose records it said had been falsified by DeVuono through Wild Child Pediatrics. The department's review found more than 1,500 falsified vaccinations. A later review identified an additional 35 students with fraudulent or otherwise invalid Wild Child records after state officials subpoenaed more than 100 schools.

The invalidated records created serious problems for families and school districts because New York requires proof of certain immunizations for school attendance. A suburban Long Island school district barred some former Wild Child patients from school after state health officials challenged records tied to DeVuono's practice. These were children who had done nothing wrong — caught in the middle of an adult's greed.

The Financial Reckoning

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. The new $544,000 civil penalty is in addition to the more than $1.2 million she was previously ordered to forfeit.

Because of the false records, state health officials have spent the past two years identifying and removing inaccurate immunization records from the database. That ongoing cleanup — affecting schools, families, and the state's public health infrastructure — underscores a broader lesson: fraud in healthcare doesn't just cost money. It erodes the trust that the entire system depends on. As states continue to tighten oversight of immunization databases, DeVuono's case will likely serve as the benchmark for how seriously officials are willing to take that responsibility.