Woman with false credentials worked as nurse

[cougarnurse]

What a story! Woman worked in nursing jobs with false credentials - STLtoday.com

A woman used falsified credentials to work as a nurse for 18 years, many of them in the St. Louis area, according to federal court documents in a wire fraud case against her.

Catherine M. Connor, 55, of Chesterfield, pleaded guilty July 22 in U.S. District Court in St. Louis to one felony count of wire fraud. She admitted a long history of falsifying credentials, lying about her qualifications and covering up her criminal record to win nursing jobs.

She also doctored the nursing licenses of a co-worker and her ex-husband by adding her name, records show.

Connor's employers included SSM DePaul Health Center, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Missouri's prison health care contractor and the National Institutes of Health, according to the court documents.


Investigators said that Connor worked mainly in education or consulting and never provided hands-on care, such as administering drugs.

"It probably was easier to blend in" that way, said Quinn Lewis, investigations administrator for the Missouri Board of Nursing. He said that "nurse impostors" like Connor are a growing problem across the country.

The charge related to a false statement made in an e-mail Feb. 25 to a supervisor at HealthCare USA of Missouri, a client of her employer at the time. She could face a prison term of up to 10 years.

Lewis investigated Connor in 2004, put her on the state's list of impostors and referred the case to local law enforcement. But posing as a nurse was only a misdemeanor then, and Lewis said that police agencies may be reluctant to pursue a crime they rarely encounter.

Connor did not return a message left with her mother in Virginia. Her lawyer declined to comment, saying Connor did not want him to talk. Assistant U.S. Attorney Dorothy McMurtry also declined comment.

Connor's plea deal, however, provides a road map of her deceit:

In 1984, according to court documents, Connor was sentenced to two years of probation and ordered to get mental health treatment after being convicted of two felony counts of credit card theft and two felony counts of forgery.

She received her nursing degree in 1991 from George Mason University in Virginia and applied for a license in that state, never admitting her criminal convictions or her mental health treatment. She also failed a national licensing exam.

She began working for the National Institutes of Health in July of 1991, but her employer found out she had failed the exam and ordered her to pass it or resign. She did not succeed and left NIH on Dec. 18, 1991.

Two days later, she applied for a position with a hospital in Fairfax, Va., again lying about her past.

Connor received a master's degree in health education from George Mason in 1994, the same year she applied for and received a job as a diabetes educator at DePaul, in Bridgeton.

Connor submitted a doctored copy of her ex-husband's nursing license and a certificate that showed that she was a certified diabetes educator. The Missouri Board of Nursing says that her ex-husband was from Missouri and had been licensed here.

Connor worked at DePaul until a random audit of credentials uncovered her ruse, court records show. She was fired in early 2004 and referred to the Board of Nursing.

SSM spokeswoman Jamie Newell said that background checks are conducted on all prospective new employees, and their credentials are now verified with the state database of licensed nurses. In 1994, however, the common practice was for a nurse to bring in the license, which was then photocopied and placed on file.

After DePaul, Connor went to Texas, where she briefly worked as sales representative before being fired three weeks later, court documents show.

In December 2005, Connor applied for a job with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Missouri and worked there as a "senior RN, health coach" for almost a year.

In October 2006, she applied to work for Correctional Medical Services, Missouri's prison health contractor. She left in June 2008.

Ken Fields, a CMS spokesman, said Connor worked "in an administrative capacity outside of facilities where patients are treated" and had no patient contact. Fields said that CMS "credentialing procedure for nursing staff who have contact with patients is extensive and thorough, and includes verification of nursing licenses."

On Sept. 15, 2008, Connor applied to work at MHNet, producing a fake Missouri license, and got a job as a case manager, records showed.

In February, HealthCare USA, a client, checked the Missouri Board of Nursing website to confirm Connor's status and discovered discrepancies. A vice president confronted Connor, who resigned a few days later.

She then applied for another job, with Maxim Staffing Solutions, but was turned down due to problems with her credentials, according to a company spokeswoman.

Dawn Kappel, spokeswoman for the National Council of State Boards of Nursing, said that impostors are facing a tougher time as more employers verify license status with computerized, online state board databases, rather than accepting paper records from the applicant.