Napa doctor charged with fake COVID-19 vaccination card program

A Napa naturopath is the first person to be charged by the federal government with a fake COVID-19 vaccination card and natural treatment program, accused of lying about the safety of injections to peddle fake treatments against the disease with forged vaccination cards, prosecutors said.

Federal prosecutors said Juli A. Mazi, 41, a licensed naturopathic doctor in California, was arrested on Wednesday and charged with one count of wire fraud and misrepresentation regarding health care matters. She was in custody on Wednesday afternoon and a court date was pending.

“Instead of disseminating valid remedies and information, Juli Mazi has taken advantage of the illegal sale of unapproved remedies, sparking false fears and generating false evidence of vaccination,” said Acting U.S. District Attorney Stephanie Hinds for the District Northern California Department of Justice.

Jason Costanza responded to a phone message left at Mazi’s office. He said he was her personal receptionist, that he didn’t know if she had a lawyer, but that she was getting yelled at.

“They are going to take an angel off the streets,” Costanza said. “She helped people who had problems with the shots. She’s a superhero when it comes to that sort of thing. Many people admire her and will support her on this matter. She is one of the smartest human beings you will ever meet.

At least one other Californian has been accused of forging COVID-19 vaccination cards. In May, the California Alcoholic Beverage Control Department said Todd Anderson, 59, of Acampo, near Lodi, had been charged with forgery and identity theft for selling fake Covid-vaccine cards. 19 in his Old Corner Saloon.

Waters website says she received her doctorate in naturopathic medicine from the National University of Natural Medicine in Portland, Ore., where she trained in traditional medical sciences as well as ancient and modern modalities that rely on the restorative power of nature to heal.

According to court documents, Mazi had a program in place to offer homeoprophylactic vaccines for childhood illnesses that she said would meet California schools’ vaccination requirements, and forged vaccination cards submitted by parents to California schools. Homeoprophylaxis or homeopathic vaccination is a controversial treatment in which a person is given small amounts of a disease to boost immunity.

Mazi is said to have used the COVID-19 pandemic to develop another vaccination program which she was leading by selling vaccination lozenges which she fraudulently claimed in written documents and consensually controlled records would provide “lifelong immunity against COVID-19 ”.

Mazi explained that the lozenges contained a “very minute amount of this disease” – COVID-19 – which can cause “infectious symptoms” of COVID-19 or “automatically signal the attention of the immune system, inducing immunity.”

To encourage customers to buy the lozenges, Mazi allegedly exploited misinformation and fear, prosecutors said, mistakenly claiming that FDA-cleared COVID-19 vaccines contain “toxic ingredients.” Mazi further stated that its customers could supply the granules to children for COVID-19 immunity, and that “the dose is actually the same for babies.”

The capers collapsed in April when a person complained to the Department of Health and Human Services Inspector General’s office hotline, saying family members had purchased homeoprophylactic vaccination lozenges COVID-19 from Mazi. The person who complained said he told family members that the lozenges contained the COVID-19 virus and would create an antibody response in their body’s immune system.

The caller reported that the family members had not received injections of any of the three COVID-19 vaccines authorized by the FDA, but had received COVID-19 vaccination cards, with Moderna listed, as well as the homeoprophylactic vaccination lozenges.

Mazi reportedly asked family members to falsely mark the cards to indicate that they had received the Moderna vaccine on the date they ingested the COVID-19 homeoprophylactic vaccination lozenges.

Mazi has also provided its customers with CDC COVID-19 immunization cards with instructions on how to fraudulently complete the cards to falsely believe that a client has received two doses of the Moderna vaccine.

As part of his program, prosecutors said, Mazi provided customers with specific Moderna vaccine lot numbers to put on cards and instructions on how to select the alleged dates they received Moderna vaccines to escape. to suspicion. According to court documents, she was not an authorized COVID-19 vaccine supplier.

Recorded conversations indicated that Mazi knew she was crossing a line with the falsified vaccine cards, according to court records.

“Even though it’s more than an ethical stretch that I’m happy about, I’m pulling together to deliver them,” she said in a recorded conversation, according to court documents.

The court affidavit detailing the allegations did not make it clear how many people may have received Mazi’s treatments and falsified vaccination records.

According to the affidavit, financial records indicated that she had received a total of $ 221,817 in 1,242 transactions from January 2020 to May 21, 2021. Of these, 25 transactions totaling $ 7,653 were accompanied by notes indicating that they were for COVID treatments, and 21 took place in 2021, after FDA-approved vaccines became available to the public.

“Spreading inaccurate or false medical information about COVID-19 for personal gain, as the complaint alleges, is dangerous and only arouses public skepticism,” said Special Agent in Charge Craig D. Fair of the FBI Field Office in San Francisco.