A person who had been working as a nurse was arrested and indicted last week on suspicion of healthcare fraud and identity theft after a staffing firm checked her employment and educational background, according to court records.

Samantha Rivera had never graduated from nursing school nor held a nursing license in any state, according to court records. However, she worked in an $80,000 per year nurse teaching job at a school in New Mexico and as temporary nurse at a hospital in St. Louis for three months before applying for employment through another healthcare staffing firm that found the discrepancies in her background.

The timeline in the indictment begins in June 2015 when Rivera applied for a teaching position at for-profit school Brown Mackie College in Albuquerque, NM. She was then hired as a full-time instructor in the college of applied science in nursing, according to court records. Rivera had claimed she received a master’s degree in nursing from Georgetown University and that she had previously taught pediatric nursing at the University of New Mexico. Neither was true.

After leaving the school half a year later in December 2015, Rivera applied for a nursing job through staffing firm ATC Healthcare Services on Sept. 13, 2016. Rivera used the license of an actual nurse with a similar name, according to court records. She also falsely claimed to have worked as a per diem registered nurse at the University of New Mexico hospital and that she had a bachelor’s degree in nursing from the university.

Rivera was assigned to the intensive care unit and geropsych unit at St. Alexius Hospital in St. Louis. She worked at the hospital from Nov. 28, 2016, to Feb. 23, 2017, when her three-month contract was not extended.

“In those units, the defendant was responsible for assessing patients, identifying changes in ‘patients’ conditions, performing medical treatments, and administering medications, including controlled substances,” according to court records.

She then applied for employment at Alternate Nurse Staffing Solutions in Chicago, according to court records. However, the company checked with the University of New Mexico, which responded that no one with Rivera’s Social Security Number had ever graduated from the school. The firm also checked with the University of New Mexico Hospital, which verified that Rivera had never been employed there.