Authorities in Flagler County, Florida, arrested and charged Autumn Bardisa with pretending to be a nurse and treating thousands of patients, all without a valid license.
Autumn Bardisa

A Florida woman posed as a nurse and treated thousands of patients before getting caught in the lie, leading to her arrest and criminal charges, authorities said.

Autumn Bardisa, 29, was accused of submitting fake records to get a job at a hospital in Palm Coast, a city of about 100,000 in Flagler County. She treated or helped treat nearly 4,500 patients between June 2024 and January 2025, when she was fired after her ruse unraveled, the Flagler County Sheriff's Office said.

Bardisa was charged with seven counts of practicing a health care profession without a license and seven counts of fraudulent use of personal identification information, each a third-degree felony that carries up to five years in prison, the sheriff's office said. She was arrested on Aug. 5 while wearing medical scrubs, a photo released by the sheriff's office showed. She is being held on a $70,000 bond, jail records show.

“This is one of the most disturbing cases of medical fraud we’ve ever investigated,” Sheriff Rick Staly said in a statement.

It wasn't immediately clear if Bardisa had an attorney who could comment on her behalf.

How did Florida woman get hired as a nurse?

According to the sheriff's office, investigators learned that Bardisa was hired by the AdventHealth hospital in Palm Coast in July 2023 as an advanced nurse tech, working under supervision of a registered nurse. In her application, Bardisa said she had completed the required education for nursing but hadn't yet passed the national exam to obtain a license.

During the course of her hiring, she told the hospital she had completed the exam and provided a license number, the sheriff's office said. The license number matched a registered nurse who had the same first name but a different last name, which Bardisa told the hospital was because she had recently gotten married. AdventHealth asked her to provide her marriage license, but she never did.

During her time on the job, Bardisa participated in medical services to 4,486 people despite never actually holding a valid nursing license, the sheriff's office said.

Bardisa seemed to do very well at her job, Staly told the Daytona Beach News-Journal, part of the USA TODAY Network, in an interview. She did so well that she eventually was up for a promotion. That's when things unraveled, he said.

How Bardisa got caught, officials say

In January 2025, Bardisa was offered a promotion. That’s when a fellow employee checked Bardisa’s license. The employee discovered that Bardisa had a certified nursing assistant license, which had expired, the sheriff's office stated. The employee reported her discovery to administrators.

AdventHealth investigated and found that Bardisa had not provided her marriage license as she had been asked to do.

Administrators fired Bardisa on Jan. 22, 2025, and the hospital contacted the sheriff’s office.

Investigators found that the license number Bardisa provided belonged to another nurse.

Flagler County Sheriff’s Office detectives and investigators with the Florida Department of Health and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services “determined that Bardisa shared a first name with the other nurse, who was employed by AdventHealth, but at a different hospital, and had attended school with her,” the sheriff's office said. But the two women did not know each other.

Staly said in the phone interview that the nurse whose credentials Bardisa used for her fraud works at an AdventHealth hospital in South Florida. He said Bardisa graduated from Rasmussen University, which according to its website, has campuses in Florida, Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, North Dakota and Wisconsin.

Staly said Bardisa was going to be promoted to "charge nurse" when the hospital uncovered her deceit. A charge nurse supervises their specific nursing unit and ensures that nurses perform operations "smoothly and efficiently" within the department, according to the American Nurses Association website.

"I guess her degree is in this area," Staly said. "But that doesn't make it right for you to steal someone's identity and pretend that you are a registered licensed nurse."

Lindsay Cashio, AdventHealth's executive director of communications for the region, told the News-Journal in an email that the hospital does not comment on personnel or pending legal matters.

After firing, Bardisa became a real registered nurse

After she was fired, Bardisa passed her state test and became a registered nurse, receiving her license on Feb. 18. Staly said the state might revoke her license due to the accusations against her.

“This woman potentially put thousands of lives at risk by pretending to be someone she was not and violating the trust of patients, their families, AdventHealth and an entire medical community," Staly said, calling her actions "reckless and dangerous."

Staly said his office is not aware of "any injury or death that occurred while she was working for AdventHealth that was related to any care that she provided."

He said the state decided to charge Bardisa with one count of each charge for each of the seven months she committed the fraud because it would bog down the legal system to charge her with 4,486 counts.

"I give credit that she eventually got caught by AdventHealth and they reported it instead of trying to hide it like some corporations might try to do," Staly said. "I won't speak for AdventHealth but clearly there's a follow-up flaw in their onboarding process. Ask for proof that she got married and she never provided it."

The sheriff's office asked anyone who believed they might be a victim to email fakenursecase@flaglersheriff.com for information.

Fake nurses and doctors arrested in several states

Fake nurses and doctors have been caught in several states in recent years, leading to multiple arrests.

Earlier this year, a New York man was arrested after prosecutors said he posed as a doctor and performed a botched cosmetic surgery in his apartment, leaving a woman brain dead. She later died. Felipe Hoyos Foronda then tried to flee the country but was nabbed at an airport and charged with assault and unauthorized practice of a profession.

Last month, police in Pennsylvania arrested Shannon Nicole Womack, who they said used at least 20 aliases to work as a registered nurse, licensed practical nurse and registered nurse supervisor to care for patients at rehabilitation and nursing homes without proper licenses.

More arrests have have been documented in Ohio, Michigan and Mississippi. Federal prosecutors in May charged a New York man, Kevin M. Whitman, with distributing and dispensing a controlled substance and fraud after they said he pretended to be a doctor and used someone else's credentials to issue 177 prescriptions of controlled substances including oxycodone.

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Florida woman faked her way into a nursing job — then it all unraveled, charges say

Reporting by Frank Fernandez and Jeanine Santucci, USA TODAY NETWORK / The Daytona Beach News-Journal

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