Jia Liu
Supply: Division of Justice
A U.S. Marine Corps Reservist from New York who in the past used to be arrested on fees associated with taking part within the Jan. 6 Capitol rise up has been charged in a brand new case of conspiring to promote faux Covid-19 vaccination playing cards to fellow reservists, prosecutors mentioned Thursday.
The reservist, 26-year-old Queens resident Jia Liu, is accused of conspiring with a nurse named Steven Rodriguez, 27, to defraud the U.S. Division of Well being and Human Services and products within the faux card distribution scheme, in step with prosecutors in U.S. District Courtroom in Brooklyn.
Liu one after the other is charged with offering those playing cards to Marine Corps reservists, thus defrauding the Protection Division.
The Protection Division in the past ordered that each one lively and reserve army provider individuals be vaccinated in opposition to Covid from August to January.
Liu’s alleged distribution of the faux playing cards to different Marin reservists helped them evade this requirement, prosecutors famous.
“Via intentionally distributing fraudulent COVID-19 vaccination playing cards to the unvaccinated, the defendants put army and different communities liable to contracting an endemic that has already claimed just about 1,000,000 lives on this nation,” mentioned U.S. Lawyer Breon Peace.
“This Workplace stays dedicated to rooting out and prosecuting the ones people who threaten our public well being and protection for benefit.”
Prosecutors mentioned the scheme resulted in greater than 300 stolen or false vaccine playing cards circulating and created greater than 70 false entries in immunization databases.
That allowed “unvaccinated people to obtain the Excelsior Go, which presentations a person’s vaccination standing in a virtual app,” the U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace mentioned in a press unlock.
The scheme allegedly ran from March 2021 thru this month.
Prosecutors mentioned Liu and Rodriguez, who labored in a Lengthy Island health facility, “promoted their scheme thru messages on encrypted messaging packages and on social media.”
“They referred to COVID-19 Vaccination Playing cards the usage of code names, reminiscent of “reward playing cards,” “Cardi Bs,” “Christmas playing cards” and “Pokemon playing cards.”
Courtroom paperwork say Lin purchased clean vaccine playing cards, from Rodriguez, after which solid and disbursed them to consumers and different co-conspirators for a benefit.
Liu additionally informed consumers to fulfill Rodriguez in particular person on the health facility the place he works to shop for fraudulent playing cards, paperwork say.
Jia Liu
Supply: Division of Justice
“Rodriguez would meet the patron, however as a substitute of administering the vaccine he destroyed a vial of vaccine meant for use to vaccinate a affected person,” prosecutors mentioned.
“He then equipped a solid COVID-19 Vaccination Card to the patron that he finished to make it falsely seem that the patron had gained a dose of vaccine. He additional made entries within the Immunization Databases falsely indicating that the patron were vaccinated.”
Liu used to be charged in October through federal prosecutors in Washington, D.C. for getting into the Capitol grounds all over the Jan. 6, 2021, rise up, and different crimes attached to the invasion of the halls of Congress that day through a mob of supporters of former President Donald Trump. The legal criticism incorporates pictures of him in and across the Capitol that day.
