The Attorney General’s Office today announced that Corissa Laws, 38, of Lawrenceville, Georgia, was sentenced for stealing another person’s identity in order to illegally practice as a nurse in Vermont. In 2022, Ms. Laws impersonated a licensed Florida nurse to receive a pandemic-related emergency authorization to fraudulently register as a licensed nurse in Vermont and New Hampshire. Ms. Laws then worked in residential care facilities in Vermont and other states, at a level of care that she had not been trained or certified to safely perform.
Investigators with the Vermont Secretary of State’s Office of Professional Regulation (OPR) discovered Ms. Laws’ actual identity in April 2023 and referred the case to the Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud and Residential Abuse Unit (MFRAU) for joint investigation. Finding that Ms. Laws had already left the state, OPR and MFRAU executed a search warrant on Ms. Laws’ cell phone to determine her real-time location. Ms. Laws was consequently apprehended in Cobb County, Georgia.
Ms. Laws plead guilty today to felony identity theft and misdemeanor unauthorized practice of nursing. Superior Court Judge Michael J. Harris sentenced Ms. Laws to three years in prison, suspended for six years of probation. Her supervision will be transferred to Georgia, where she faces concurrent prosecution for other crimes. Ms. Laws will also be barred from working in any future capacity as a Medicaid service provider.
If you suspect Medicaid fraud, contact MFRAU at https://ago.vermont.gov/medicaid-fraud-report-form.
The Medicaid Fraud and Residential Abuse Unit receives 75 percent of its funding from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under a grant award totaling $1,332,724 for Federal fiscal year FY 2025. The remaining 25 percent, totaling $444,241 for FY 2025, is funded by the State of Vermont.
CONTACT: Amelia Vath, Outreach and Communications Coordinator, 802-828-3171