A Utah doctor has been accused of doling out nearly 2,000 fake COVID vaccination cards and dumping actual mRNA shots, thereby defrauding the U.S. government.
KTVX reported that Dr. Michael Kirk Moore Jr. of Salt Lake City, his neighbor Kristin Jackson Andersen, and two others have been charged with conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government; conspiracy to convert, sell, convey, and dispose of government property; and conversion sale, conveyance, and disposal of government property as well as aiding and abetting.
Court documents indicate that the accused were both members of a group seeking to "'liberate' the medical profession from government and industry conflicts of interest."
Moore was indicted on Jan. 11 by a federal grand jury in Salt Lake City.
What are the details?
Moore, 58, is a plastic surgeon at the Plastic Surgery Institute of Utah Inc. in Midvale, where he worked with office manager Kari Dee Burgoyne and receptionist Sandra Flores, both similarly charged.
According to the federal criminal complaint, Moore and his compatriots destroyed hundreds of doses of government-provided COVID-19 vaccines.
Moore allegedly signed a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention COVID-19 Vaccination Program Provider Agreement in order to secure COVID-19 vaccines and vaccination record cards and ordered hundreds of doses of vaccines from the CDC. Instead of peddling the government vaccines, Moore allegedly began giving out fraudulent vaccination record cards in exchange for direct cash payments or direct donations of $50. The approximate value of these cards was $96,850.
Between May 2021 and September 2022, the defendants allegedly also administered harmless "saline shots to minor children to trick them into thinking they had received a vaccine" at the request of their parents.
The charging documents indicate that Moore had managed to "falsely reflect that the Fraudulent Vax Card Seekers had received at least 1937 doses of bona fide COVID-19 vaccines, when, in fact, they had received none."
As for the real vaccines (i.e., Janssen, Moderna, Pfizer, and Pfizer Pediatric), the defendants allegedly destroyed $28,028 worth by drawing them from the bottles sent by the government and "squirting them down the drain" via a syringe.
The scheme reportedly worked on a referral basis.
Those seeking the cards were prompted to provide Andersen with the name of a previous customer. After this preliminary screening process, the so-called "Fraudulent Vax Card Seeker" allegedly was directed to a website to make the $50 donation.
The scheme appeared to be going well until an undercover agent managed to get a referral in March 2022. Then, in June, Moore's clinic gave a second undercover agent a fake vaccine record card.
The second undercover agent had Flores confirm that the defendants gave fake vaccinations to kids.
"By allegedly falsifying vaccine cards and administering saline shots to children instead of COVID-19 vaccines, not only did this provider endanger the health and well-being of a vulnerable population but also undermined public trust and the integrity of federal health care programs," said Curt L. Muller, special agent in charge with the Department of Health and Human Services, office of the inspector general.
Moore and the other defendants may be on the hook to the government for at least $124,878.
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