Another Fake Nurse Sentenced: Why Credential Fraud Is Rising in Healthcare

Thomasina Amponsah, a Baltimore County resident, was recently sentenced for a far-reaching nurse impersonation scheme that spanned dozens of healthcare facilities in Maryland. Her sentencing sends another urgent signal to the nursing community about the continued dangers of credential fraud and the toll it takes on patients, colleagues, and the profession.

Who Is Thomasina Amponsah?

Amponsah, 51, is a Baltimore County woman with a background as a certified medical assistant—but she never held a valid licensed nurse credential. Instead, she obtained and used stolen nursing licenses and fabricated educational credentials to secure employment as both a registered nurse and a licensed practical nurse (LPN), despite having no legal or academic right to these roles.

How She Impersonated a Nurse

From September 2019 through August 2023, Amponsah fraudulently posed as a nurse at “no less than 40” healthcare and skilled nursing facilities throughout Maryland as well as a public school. She used stolen identities, faked her experience—at one point citing a previous “LPN Supervisor” role as well as a degree from Florida State University—and even incorporated a victim’s name into her falsified documents.​

She allegedly forged a physician's signature on a controlled substance prescription for Tramadol, faxed the fraudulent order to a pharmacy, and was only discovered and terminated after this deception. Her actions included failing to administer prescribed medications to patients and falsifying supporting documentation, which put patient safety and trust at significant risk.​

When she was finally apprehended, Amponsah was sentenced to 38 months in federal prison after pleading guilty in August to making false statements in healthcare matters and committing aggravated identity theft. She was also ordered to pay more than $145,000 in restitution—the amount she fraudulently earned while impersonating a nurse.​ The facilities who employed her billed Medicare and Medicaid for care she purportedly provided.

Other Recent Nurse Impersonation Schemes

Amponsah’s case is far from unique, as credential fraud and nurse impersonators have made many recent headlines:

• Shannon Nicole Womack was charged across multiple states after allegedly posing as a nurse using 20 aliases and 7 Social Security numbers.
• Leticia Gallarzo was recently issued an arrest warrant after failing to appear at her own sentencing. She was facing six years in prison for multiple convictions related to impersonating nurses and falsifying medical documents across different states in the U.S.​
• Brigitte Cleroux was sentenced in December 2024 to seven years in prison for impersonating a nurse in both British Columbia and Ontario, Canada, having treated over 1,000 patients while using falsified nursing credentials. Her actions prompted calls across Canada for stricter vetting procedures and raised public concern about the adequacy of identity verification in healthcare settings.​
• 6 Fake Nurses Busted in Texas in October 2025 using stolen or fake credentials to apply for RN positions across Texas and New Mexico.

Why Credential Fraud Is on the Rise

Recent data shows that healthcare-fraud prosecutions and schemes are increasing in both scale and sophistication. For example, one federal report found that healthcare-fraud offences rose by nearly 20 % between FY 2020 and FY 2024. 

Several factors are contributing to this uptick:

• The increasing complexity of healthcare delivery — more providers, more facilities, more moving parts — creates more opportunities for false credentials and falsified identities to slip through.
• Greater use of staffing agencies, travel nurses, and short-term hires means faster credentialing cycles and sometimes weaker verification processes.
• Advances in technology and data breaches have made stolen identities and fake licenses easier to produce and harder to detect, which fraudsters exploit.
• Enhanced federal enforcement and data-sharing efforts mean more fraud is being uncovered and reported, which may in part reflect stronger detection rather than purely greater incidence. 

This environment makes it especially important for healthcare organizations to tighten verification procedures and for professionals to maintain awareness of how their credentials can be misused.

Safeguarding the Profession

As these cases illustrate, thorough credential checks and vigilant team culture are essential in keeping patients safe and preserving trust in nursing. Each instance serves as a reminder that ongoing diligence is needed at every level of the healthcare system to protect the profession’s integrity, including multi-layer verification (license lookup, identity checks, prior facility checks).

 

🤔 Nurses: why do you think credential fraud is rising? Let us know in the discussion forum below.

 

Crime