Timeline of fake vaccine allegations around Julie DeVuono, Wild Child Pediatrics
Julie DeVuono arrives at court in Riverhead to face sentencing for faking COVID-19 vaccine cards. Credit: Tom Lambui/Tom Lambui
Jan. 27, 2022
Two Amityville nurses — Julie DeVuono, 49, a nurse practitioner and the owner and operator of Wild Child Pediatric Healthcare, and her employee Marissa Urraro, 44, a licensed practical nurse — are arraigned on charges they fraudulently filled out COVID-19 vaccination cards and entered the false vaccine status information in the state database. Authorities say the scheme garnered $1.5 million in profit. A receptionist at the facility, Brooke Hogan, 29, is charged the next day.
Jan. 16, 2023
Newsday reports Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney filed a civil forfeiture action alleging DeVuono authorized a $236,980 wire transfer three days after her January 2022 arrest to pay the balance on a mortgage for a house owned by her husband, Devin DeVuono, an NYPD pilot. Tierney was seeking a forfeiture judgment of more than $1.3 million in proceeds.
March 21, 2023
A Suffolk County grand jury indicts DeVuono, accusing her of running a $1.5 million fraudulent COVID-19 vaccination card scheme. On April 12, 2023, DeVuono is arraigned and pleads not guilty. Her corporation, Kids-On-Call Pediatric Nurse Practitioner PC, has also been indicted.
Sept. 15, 2023
DeVuono and her corporation each plead guilty to felony charges of second-degree money laundering and second-degree forgery. She also pleads guilty to one count of first-degree offering a false instrument for filing after she illegally obtained a prescription for 180 tablets of oxycodone for herself in the name of her brother.
October 2023
The Suffolk and Nassau County health departments advise schools to not accept measles, chickenpox and other immunization records from Wild Child Pediatric Health Care. The letters to school districts were not mandates.
December 2023
The New York State Department of Health is investigating whether Wild Child Pediatric Healthcare also faked certificates of immunization against diseases like measles. School districts that had initially required new vaccination records backed off the requirement.
Jan. 17, 2024
Jeanette Breen, a Nassau County midwife who runs Baldwin Midwifery, is slapped with a $300,000 fine by the state Department of Health for falsifying vaccination records for almost 1,500 children, about 670 of them from Long Island. She was allowed to keep her midwife license and will not have to pay half the fine as long as she no longer administers vaccines that are reported to the state immunization registry and complies with state health laws.
The Health Department required that children who received the phony vaccinations from Breen be removed from schools until they could show proof of immunization, or that they were in the process of getting required shots.
April 24, 2024
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority announced they had fired one Metro-North Railroad employee and suspended 11 Long Island Rail Road workers for submitting fake COVID-19 vaccination cards, which were provided by DeVuono’s pediatric practice.
June 11, 2024
Supreme Court Justice John Collins ordered DeVuono to serve 840 hours of community service. She had earlier agreed to pay back $1.2 million in proceeds from the sale of the fraudulent vaccine cards, surrender her nurse practitioner and registered nurse licenses and close her pediatric practice, which had been open since her arrest.
July 1, 2024
Newsday reports Julie DeVuono did not report administering a childhood vaccine in New York for 17 years — until shortly after the state ended religious and other nonmedical exemptions in 2019, state records show. Over the next two years, DeVuono then reported giving kids more than 7,500 vaccines.
Sept. 9, 2024
The state voids 133 Long Island kids' vaccination records it says were falsified by DeVuono. The state Department of Health had earlier sent subpoenas to more than 100 school districts asking for vaccination records of about 750 children. The action prompted some parents to go to court to prevent the release of records.
Compiled by Laura Mann
This story has been updated to correct when subpoenas were sent to schools.
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