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New York nurses arrested after making staggering amount
from fake vaccine cards
The scheme allegedly brought in more than $1.5 million
Two New York nurses have been arrested for allegedly selling fake Covid-19 vaccination cards, and making more than $1.5 million in the process.
The Suffolk County district attorney’s office announced the two nurses working in Long Island, 49-year-old Julie Devuono and 44-year-old Marissa Urraro, had forged vaccine cards from last November into January of 2022. The pair reportedly charged $220 to $440 for vaccine cards for adults, but offered a discount for children, only charging $85.
After faking the actual physical vaccine cards, the two would then allegedly add false information to the New York State Immunization Information System (NYSIIS) to list people as vaccinated when they were not.
Prosecutors also alleged that the nurses forged vaccine cards for undercover detectives. The two worked at Wild Child Pediatric Healthcare in Amityville, an establishment that DeVuono, who is a nurse practitioner, owned.
Businesses around the pediatric clinic had noticed increased foot traffic recently, according to local media reports. “It’s frightening beyond words,” one neighbor told the New York CBS affiliate.
In a search of DeVuono’s home, police discovered more than $900,000 in US currency, plus a ledger documenting more than $1.5 million in payments for the alleged vaccine card scheme.
DeVuono and Urraro have both been charged with forgery.
Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond Tierney added in a statement he hopes the arrests will “send a message” to anyone else “considering gaming the system.”
“We will enforce the law to the fullest extent,” Tierney said.
‘Donald Trump’s worst nightmare’ is his own worst nightmare
Before he was found guilty of defrauding porn star Stormy Daniels,
Michael Avenatti was lauded by liberal media
February 4, 2022. © AP / John Minchillo
Disgraced lawyer Michael Avenatti has been convicted of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft for stealing $300,000 from porn star Stormy Daniels. It’s the second criminal conviction in two years for a man liberal pundits once believed would bring down the presidency of Donald Trump.
Avenatti was found guilty by a jury in Manhattan on Friday and will be sentenced in May. Representing himself, he had argued that Daniels owed him the money in exchange for legal representation in a case against Trump, but the jury sided with federal prosecutors who said Avenatti diverted the cash into his own account and then convinced Daniels that the money hadn’t arrived.
Avenatti took the cash sum from a larger advance for Daniels’ memoir, ‘Full Disclosure,’ which details her alleged affair with Trump.
Prior to his fall from grace, liberal pundits touted Avenatti as “Donald Trump’s worst nightmare,” and a “folk hero” whose legal action against Trump would “save the country.” After attempting to scupper the Supreme Court confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh with unfounded allegations of sexual assault, Avenatti explored a run for the presidency himself in 2018, immediately before his life began to unravel.
Avenatti was arrested on suspicion of domestic violence in late 2018, and less than a year later was found guilty of attempting to extort sportswear company Nike. He has yet to begin serving his 30-month prison sentence for that conviction, and is also facing retrial in California for allegedly stealing almost $10 million from various clients.
Carmaker fined for gas emissions cover-up
Mercedes-Benz to pay millions and fix rigged pollution-mitigation devices
to comply with law in South Korea
The Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) on Sunday demanded that major luxury car maker Mercedes-Benz pay $16.87 million in fines for providing falsified information on gas emissions from its diesel cars, Yonhap news agency reported.
The South Korean antitrust regulator discovered that the vehicle producer had installed illegal software on pollution-mitigation devices in some of its cars. The software allowed the devices to perform at lower levels in driving conditions than during certification tests. The vehicles therefore failed to meet the legally allowed emission levels, but the automaker was found to have covered up related facts in signs attached to its cars between April 2012 and November 2018, according to the KFTC.
The automaker also advertised that the cars’ nitrogen oxide emissions were at a minimum level and they fully met the Euro 6 emission standards. The inadequate ads were on 15 Mercedes-Benz models.
“Though Mercedes-Benz claimed that it only used typical phrases about well-known performances of the emission mitigation devices, concealing the intentional implementation of illegal software and claiming its vehicles perform the best are beyond simple exaggeration and deception,” the regulator stated, adding that “such practices will or are feared to hurt fair market order by preventing consumers from making a reasonable decision” when purchasing a car.
Apart from the fine, the KFTC also ordered the carmaker to fix the devices and install qualified software.
In 2021, the South Korean regulator slapped a number of other carmakers with fines or correction orders, including Audi-Volkswagen Korea, Nissan Motor, Stellantis Korea, and Porsche AG for similar emissions-tampering practices.
US states join Mexico in lawsuit against American gun manufacturers
Gunmakers hit back against allegations of facilitating trafficking
Attorneys general for 13 states and Washington DC have backed a Mexican federal lawsuit accusing American gun manufacturers of aiding and abetting the trafficking of weapons to Mexican criminals. The prosecutors – all Democrats – filed a brief last week in Massachusetts federal court seeking to deny the gunmakers the protection of a federal law shielding them from liability.
The targeted companies, including Smith & Wesson, Colt and Glock, have cited the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act in an effort to have the case dismissed. The law protects gunmakers from liability if their products are used in a crime.
However, Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey accused the companies of “knowingly market[ing] their products in a way that facilitates the illegal trafficking of weapons into the hands of dangerous individuals.”
Mexican legal adviser Alejandro Celorio clarified to CNN that the lawsuit is not attempting to blame the gunmakers or distributors for the killings or injuries committed with their weapons, but instead to hold them accountable for “negligence in their commercial practices” and a “lack of caution” violating US state and federal laws.
Nevertheless, the suit claims US gun makers’ practices “aid and abet the killing and maiming of children, judges, journalists, police, and ordinary citizens,” reducing Mexican life expectancy and costing the government billions of dollars annually.
Trade industry group the National Shooting Sports Foundation slammed the coalition of prosecutors for what it described as misplaced efforts, arguing the Mexican government should “focus on bringing the Mexican drug cartels to justice in Mexican courtrooms” rather than “filing a baseless lawsuit in an American court to deflect attention from its disgraceful and corrupt failure to protect its citizens.”
While most of the defendants declined to speak to media pending litigation, Glock told CNN on Sunday that it would “vigorously” defend itself against the charges.
The lawsuit, initially filed in August, alleges over 597,000 guns are trafficked from the US into Mexico and claims the companies designed, marketed and distributed “military-style assault weapons” with an eye toward arming drug cartels, thus promoting violent crime of all kinds. A 2020 report by the US Government Accountability Office revealed 70% of guns recovered in Mexico between 2014 and 2018 came from the US, according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).
Thousands of American-bought guns have found their way south of the border in recent years. The infamous Operation Fast and Furious saw the ATF deliberately allow gun dealers to sell over 2,000 weapons to known criminal entities, which would then ‘walk’ them across the border to Mexico. There, ATF agents were supposed to apprehend the criminals and convince them to turn in their bosses, but as often as not the agency ended up losing track of the guns. The scheme, which ran from 2009 to 2011, was wound up only after the firearms had been used in the commission of hundreds of murders and other crimes, including the 2010 killing of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry. Some were later used in the 2015 Bataclan massacre in France.
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