In what amounts to a stark violation of medical trust, a Baltimore County woman has been sentenced to a 38-month stint in federal prison for impersonating nurses and identity theft. In a recent declaration reported by FOX Baltimore, officials revealed that 51-year-old Thomasina E. Amponsah secured employment at over 40 facilities fraudulently presenting herself as a registered nurse or licensed practical nurse (LPN), despite lacking any legitimate nursing credentials.
Amponsah's deceitful pursuit commenced around September 2019 and sustained itself until about August 2023. Throughout this period, she allegedly crafted elaborate professional and educational histories, even going so far as to fabricate her degree from Florida State University. According to a report by WMAR2News, this calculated charade allowed her to collect in excess of $145,000 in wages, all the while having billed for services provided to healthcare benefit programs, which included the likes of Medicare and Medicaid.
The grandeur of Amponsah's falsification was such that she even attempted to manipulate her name to include that of her victims, one of whom's credentials she had stolen. However, her fabricated identity and supposed qualifications unraveled following an incident where Amponsah admitted to forging a physician's signature on a prescription for Tramadol, an opioid painkiller, and thereafter faxing it to a pharmacy, as noted by FOX Baltimore. This act led to her termination from the nursing facility that had employed her.
In the time span between July 18, 2021, and October 9, 2022, it has been confirmed that the impersonator worked at no fewer than 21 skilled nursing facilities, despite being dismissed for her forgeries and malpractices.
