Former Marine reservist Jia Liu, of Queens, sentenced to 21 months in prison for stealing, forging and distributing fraudulent COVID-19 vaccination cards

A federal judge in Brooklyn on Friday sentenced a former Marine reservist from Queens to 21 months in prison for stealing, forging and distributing fraudulent COVID-19 vaccination cards during the pandemic.

U.S. District Judge Diane Gujarati ordered Jia Liu, 28, to serve the sentence related to the vaccination card scheme consecutively with a 4-month sentence imposed in June by a federal judge in Washington, D.C. for Liu’s role in the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Liu will serve up to 25 months in prison.

Gujarati told Liu during a hearing interrupted by the earthquake that hit the New York region Friday that his actions placed “public health in jeopardy.”

Liu expressed remorse for his role in the vaccination card scheme and told Gujarati he would no longer use illegal means to express opposition to government policies.

“I am sincere,” Liu said. “I know what I did was wrong.”

Liu’s attorney, Benjamin Yaster, of the Federal Defenders, declined to comment.

Liu and his co-conspirator, Steven Rodriguez, a nurse from Long Beach, pleaded guilty in April 2023 to conspiracies to defraud and obstruct the U.S. response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Rodriguez was sentenced to 30 months in prison in June for his role in the scheme.

According to federal prosecutors and court documents, Liu teamed up with Rodriguez, who worked at a clinic in Hempstead, to steal, forge, sell and distribute COVID-19 vaccination cards to hundreds of unvaccinated people. They also offered buyers and co-conspirators false entry into government immunization databases.

Liu purchased stolen vaccination cards from Rodriguez, according to court papers, and acted as a distributor to buyers who were not actually vaccinated from the disease the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said has claimed at least 1.2 million lives in the United States. Proof of vaccination was required by some employers, to travel to certain destinations and to attend some sporting events and concerts. 

Liu engaged in the scheme for profit and to push an anti-vaccine agenda, prosecutors said. “[Expletive] the vaccine,” he wrote in a message to a co-conspirator.

“I did what I thought was right in my eyes,” Liu explained to Gujarati on Friday.

Liu specifically targeted the armed forces, including the U.S. Marine Corps Reserves, and their attempts to contain COVID-19, prosecutors said. The Department of Defense required members of the armed forces to be vaccinated between August 2021 and January 2023.

Liu and Rodriguez went to great lengths to evade law enforcement, according to prosecutors, who said they used code phrases such as “gift cards,” “Pokemon cards” and “Cardi B.”

“You have no idea how many documents I have faked in my usmc career,” Liu boasted to a co-conspirator on an encrypted messaging app, according to prosecutors.

Liu instructed co-conspirators to communicate by encrypted apps and hide payment records. Liu and Rodriguez disguised the source of mail containing vaccination cards by omitting their names or using fake sender names on envelopes.

“At the height of the COVID pandemic, Liu and Rodriguez brazenly fabricated vaccine cards and sold them for profit, thereby putting the safety of others at risk during this deadly health crisis,” Breon Peace, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in a statement. 

Liu pleaded guilty in October 2022 to disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building for his role in the Jan. 6 siege at the Capitol that intended to disrupt the congressional certification of President Joe Biden’s electoral victory of former President Donald Trump. U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly sentenced Liu to 4 months in prison in June 2023 in Washington, D.C.

Liu was seen on video footage entering the Capitol.