A Marine Corps reservist accused of entering the Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021 riots, is now charged with conspiring with a nurse to steal, falsify and distribute hundreds of fraudulent coronavirus vaccination cards, officers from the Marine Corps said. justice Thursday.
The reservist, Jia Liu, 26, of Queens, NY, and the nurse, Steven Rodriguez, 27, of Long Beach, NY, hatched a plan to distribute the fraudulent vaccination cards to people who had not been vaccinated, including Navy reservists who tried escape the Pentagon’s vaccination requirement for members of the military, prosecutors said.
Michael J. Driscoll, the deputy director in charge of the FBI’s New York field office, said the plan resulted in more than 300 stolen or counterfeit vaccination cards circulating through the community, as well as the destruction of “multiple doses” of the coronavirus vaccine.
Mr. Liu and Mr. Rodriguez were arrested Thursday morning and charged with conspiracy charges to defraud the United States Department of Health and Human Services and a charge of conspiracy to commit forgery, prosecutors said.
Mr Liu was also charged with conspiracy to defraud the Defense Ministry for providing fraudulent vaccination cards to Marine reservists, prosecutors said.
“By deliberately distributing fraudulent Covid-19 vaccination cards to unvaccinated people, the defendants are putting the military and other communities at risk of contracting a virus that has already claimed nearly a million lives in this country,” said Breon Peace, the US Attorney for the Eastern District. of New York, said in a statement.
Both men pleaded not guilty in New York’s Eastern District Court on Thursday.
Mr Liu was released on $250,000 bail for house arrest with GPS monitoring, a spokesman for the US law firm said. Mr. Rodriguez was released on a $100,000 bond, the spokesman said. If convicted, both men face up to 10 years in prison.
Benjamin Yaster, an attorney for Mr. Liu, declined to comment on the allegations.
“The charges are clearly troubling,” Gary Farrell, an attorney for Mr. Rodriguez, said in an email. “This young man has no criminal record and has a good family, so he was released on an uncovered signature slip with government approval.”
Prosecutors said the scheme lasted from at least March 2021 until this month and offered buyers blank vaccination cards or completed vaccination cards with falsified information.
Buyers could also be entered into immunization databases, allowing them to receive the Excelsior Pass, which displays a user’s vaccination status in a digital app, prosecutors said.
As part of the plan, Mr. Liu blank vaccination cards from Mr. Rodriguez, and forged them and distributed them for a profit, prosecutors said.
Mr. Liu also instructed buyers to meet with Mr. Rodriguez at his clinic in Hempstead, NY, who was not identified in court records, prosecutors said.
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At the clinic, Rodriguez would destroy a vial of the vaccine and then record the dose on a vaccination card as if he had administered it to the buyer, prosecutors said. He would then enter the information into immunization databases, falsely stating that the buyer had been vaccinated, prosecutors said.
Both men promoted the scheme on encrypted messaging apps and on social media, using code names for the vaccination cards, such as “gift cards,” “Cardi Bs,” “Christmas cards,” and “Pokemon cards.”
Mr Liu was already charged in connection with the January 6, 2021 riots, when a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol and attacked police officers as Congress sought to confirm the results of the presidential election.
Liu, who entered the Capitol on video footage in a black jacket with a hood with the American flag over his head, was charged last year with four charges, including disorderly conduct in a capitol building, prosecutors said. That case is still pending.