Mother, Daughters Arraigned for Providing Fake COVID Cards
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By Rick Pezzullo
A mother and her two daughters were arraigned in Cortlandt Town Court last week after being charged with providing fraudulent COVID-19 vaccination record cards to maintain and obtain employment at a Croton-on-Hudson nursing home.
Westchester County District Attorney Miriam Rocah said Poughkeepsie residents Antoinette Clarke, 48, Dzjara Clarke, 27, and Jajvia Clarke, 22, were each arraigned on Jan. 31 for Criminal Possession of a Forged Instrument in the Second Degree, a felony, after the District Attorney’s Office and members of the New York State Department of Health’s Vaccination Complaint Investigations Team made the arrests following a collaborative investigation.
“People who create fraudulent vaccination cards and pretend to be vaccinated to enter workplaces, businesses or facilities, particularly ones with vulnerable populations, are putting others at increased risk of the serious effects of COVID-19,” Rocah said. “Making, possessing, purchasing or selling fraudulent COVID-19 Vaccinations Record Cards is a crime.”
As alleged in the felony complaint, Antoinette Clarke, a nurse employed at the nursing home, and Dzjara Clarke and Jajvia Clarke, applicants for nursing assistant positions, each submitted a copy of a forged COVID-19 Vaccination Record Card to the facility. In New York State, healthcare workers must be vaccinated as a condition of employment.
“Vaccination fraud is a serious crime. It creates a threat to public health and undermines the safety of our healthcare professionals who are working around the clock to get us through the pandemic,” said New York State Health Commissioner Dr. Mary T. Bassett. “For those who choose to flout the law and endanger their patients and others around them, you will be held accountable.”
The defendants are scheduled to appear again in Cortlandt Town Court on March 14.
The case is being prosecuted by the Trials and Investigations Division’s Economic Crimes Bureau. Anyone who has information regarding the purchase, possession, or sale of fake or forged vaccination cards can call the District Attorney’s Office at (914) 995-TIPS.
Rick has more than 40 years’ experience covering local news in Westchester and Putnam counties, running the gamut from politics and crime to sports and human interest. He has been an editor at Examiner Media since 2012. Read more from Rick’s editor-author bio here. Read Rick’s work here: https://www.theexaminernews.com/author/pezzullo_rick-writer/
