Napa naturopathic doctor charged in fake COVID-19 vaccination card, natural treatment scheme.
Napa woman charged with wire fraud, false health care statements
A Napa naturopathic doctor is the first person to be federally charged with a fake COVID-19 vaccination card and natural treatment scheme, accused of lying about the safety of the shots to peddle phony treatments for the disease with falsified inoculation cards, prosecutors said.
Federal prosecutors said Juli A. Mazi, 41, a California-licensed naturopathic doctor, was arrested Wednesday and charged with one count each of wire fraud and false statements relating to health care matters. She was in custody Wednesday afternoon, and a court date was pending.
“Instead of disseminating valid remedies and information, Juli Mazi profited from unlawfully peddling unapproved remedies, stirring up false fears and generating fake proof of vaccinations,” said acting U.S. Attorney Stephanie Hinds for the Department of Justice’s Northern District of California.
Jason Costanza responded to a phone message left at Mazi’s office. He said he is her personal receptionist and did not know if she has an attorney but said she’s getting a bum rap.
“They’re going to take an angel off the street,” Costanza said. “She’s been helping people who have had issues with shots. She’s a superhero when it comes to this kind of thing. A lot of people look up to her and will be backing her on this. She is one of the smartest human beings you’ll ever meet.”
At least one other Californian has been charged with falsifying Centers for Disease Control and Prevention COVID-19 vaccination cards. In May, California’s Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control said Todd Anderson, 59, of Acampo, near Lodi, was charged with forgery and identity theft for selling fake COVID-19 vaccine cards at his Old Corner Saloon.
Mazi’s website says she received her doctorate in naturopathic medicine from the National University of Natural Medicine in Portland, Oregon, where she trained in the 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 been running a scheme of offering homeoprophylaxis immunizations for childhood illnesses that she falsely claimed would satisfy the immunization requirements for California schools, and falsified immunization cards that were 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 stimulate immunity.
Mazi allegedly used the COVID-19 pandemic to expand on that other immunization scheme by selling immunization pellets that she fraudulently claimed in written documents and consensually monitored recordings would provide “lifelong immunity to COVID-19.”
Mazi explained that the pellets contained a “very minute amount of this disease” — COVID-19 — that can result in “infectious symptoms” of COVID-19 or “automatically flag the immune system’s attention, inducing immunity.”
To encourage customers to buy the pellets, Mazi allegedly exploited disinformation and fear, prosecutors said, by falsely claiming that the FDA-authorized COVID-19 vaccines contain “toxic ingredients.” Mazi further stated that her customers could provide the pellets to children for COVID-19 immunity, and that the “dose is actually the same for babies.”
The caper unraveled in April when someone complained to the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General hotline stating that family members bought COVID-19 homeoprophylaxis immunization pellets from Mazi. The person who complained said Mazi told the family members the pellets contained the COVID-19 virus and would create an antibody response in their bodies’ immune systems.
The caller reported that the family members didn’t receive injections of any of the three FDA authorized COVID-19 vaccines but were sent COVID-19 Vaccination Record cards, with Moderna listed, along with the homeoprophylaxis immunization pellets.
Mazi allegedly instructed the family members to falsely mark the cards to state that they had received the Moderna vaccine on the date that they ingested the COVID-19 homeoprophylaxis immunization pellets.
Mazi also provided COVID-19 vaccination record cards to her customers with instructions on how to fraudulently complete the cards to falsely make it appear as if a customer had received two doses of the Moderna vaccine.
As part of her scheme, prosecutors said, Mazi provided customers with specific Moderna vaccine lot numbers to enter onto the cards and with instruction on how to select the purported dates on which they had received the Moderna vaccines to evade suspicion. According to court documents, she wasn’t an authorized COVID-19 vaccine provider.
Recorded conversations indicated Mazi knew she was crossing a line with the falsified vaccine cards, court records said.
“Even though it’s more than an ethical stretch that I’m happy about, I am just stepping up to the plate to offer these,” she is quoted in a recorded conversation, according to court documents.
It was unclear from the court affidavit detailing the allegations how many people might have received Mazi’s treatments and falsified vaccination records.
According to the affidavit, financial records indicated she had received a total of $221,817 in 1,242 transactions from January 2020 to May 21, 2021. Of those, 25 transactions totaling $7,653 were accompanied by notes indicating they were for COVID-19 treatments, and 21 occurred in 2021, after FDA-approved vaccines had become available to the public.
“Spreading inaccurate or false medical information about COVID-19 for personal gain, as the complaint alleges, is dangerous and only seeds skepticism among the public,” said Special Agent in Charge Craig D. Fair of the FBI’s San Francisco Field Office.