Feds: LI nurse, Marine Corps reservist charged in scheme to distribute fraudulent vaccination cards

A Long Island nurse and a Marine Corps reservist from Queens have been charged with conspiracy and fraud in connection with a scheme to distribute and sell fake COVID-19 vaccination cards, federal prosecutors said Thursday.

Jia Liu, 26, of Queens, a member of the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, and Steven Rodriguez, 27, of Long Beach, who worked as a nurse at a clinic in Hempstead, were charged with one count of conspiring to defraud the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and one count of conspiring to commit forgery, according to an indictment unsealed Thursday in federal court in Brooklyn. They were both released on bond after their arraignments.

Liu is additionally charged with one count of conspiring to defraud the U.S. Department of Defense for providing the cards to his fellow Marine Corps reservists.

Prosecutors said Liu and Rodriguez distributed at least 300 stolen or false COVID-19 vaccination cards and created more than 70 false entries in the New York City and New York State immunization databases.

The defendants were arrested Thursday morning. Rodriguez's defense attorney said his client has no criminal record.

"It's obviously disturbing allegations," said Gary Farrell of Manhattan. "It looks bad, I get that, but there's more to it."

He declined to comment further.

Liu's defense attorney, Benjamin Yaster, declined to comment.

Breon Peace, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in a statement: "As alleged, by deliberately distributing fraudulent COVID-19 vaccination cards to the unvaccinated, the defendants put military and other communities at risk of contracting a virus that has already claimed nearly one million lives in this country."

Liu had been charged in October 2021 by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia in connection with the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol. Liu is facing multiple charges, including unlawfully entering the Capitol, in connection with that case.

In the vaccination fraud case, federal prosecutors allege that from at least March 2021 to February 2022, Liu purchased stolen COVID-19 vaccination cards from Rodriguez and acted as a "distributor" of the cards, selling them to buyers and other co-conspirators who did not actually receive the vaccine, according to the indictment.

Liu purchased blank vaccination cards from Rodriguez and then forged and distributed them to buyers and other co-conspirators for a profit, according to court documents. Liu also directed buyers to meet Rodriguez in person at the health care clinic to purchase fraudulent cards, according to prosecutors.

Instead of administering the vaccine, Rodriguez destroyed a vial of a vaccine intended to be used to vaccinate a patient, prosecutors said. He then provided a forged vaccination card to the buyer that he completed to make it falsely appear that the buyer had received the vaccine and entered the false information into immunization databases, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors also said that from August 2021 to January 2022, Liu created and distributed fake COVID-19 vaccination cards to other Marine Corps reservists after the Department of Defense imposed a vaccine mandate.

Prosecutors said Liu and Rodriguez "promoted" their scam through social media and messages on encrypted applications using code names such as "gift cards," "Cardi Bs," "Christmas cards" and "Pokemon cards."

By Nicole Fuller

nicole.fuller@newsday.com@NicoleFuller

Nicole Fuller is Newsday's senior criminal justice reporter. She began working at Newsday in 2012 and previously covered local government.