A Utah doctor was among four people charged in an alleged plot to sell an estimated $97,000 worth of fake Covid vaccine cards.
A federal grand jury on January 11 indicted Dr. Michael Kirk Moore Jr. of the Midvale practice Plastic Surgery Institute of Utah, along with his neighbor Kristin Jackson Anderson, surgical coordinator Kari Dee Burgoyne and receptionist Sandra Flores.
The group is also alleged to have destroyed roughly $28,000 worth of government-provided Covid-19 vaccine doses, usually by squirting them down sink drains, according to court documents. They exchanged 1,900 doses’ worth of falsified record cards for either $50 in cash or “donations to a specified charitable organization” that Moore and Anderson were involved with, the Justice Department said.
The recipients of the fake cards did not get Covid vaccines. However, according to court documents, some parents requested their children receive saline shots so that they would believe they had been vaccinated.
According to the CDC, only about 3% of America’s children have completed their primary series of Covid vaccines.
“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,” Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General Special Agent in Charge Curt L. Muller said in a statement.
The defendants’ initial court appearance is set for this Thursday. Among the charges they face in relation to the fake vaccine card plot are conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to convert, sell, convey, and dispose of government property; and conversion, sale, conveyance, and disposal of government property and aiding and abetting.
