Woman charged with using fake ‘Maderna’ vaccination card
2 September 2021, 02:54
Airport screeners found suspicious errors, an investigator said.
A 24-year-old woman submitted a fake Covid-19 vaccination card to visit Hawaii with a glaring spelling error that led to her arrest with Moderna spelled “Maderna”.
The woman uploaded a vaccination card to the state’s Save Travels programme in order to avoid a 10-day quarantine rule.
She arrived in Honolulu on August 23 on a Southwest Airlines flight, according to court documents.
Wilson Lau, a special agent with the Hawaii attorney general’s investigation division, said: “Airport screeners found suspicious errors … such as Moderna was spelled wrong and that her home was in Illinois but her shot was taken at Delaware.”
Mr Lau wrote an email to a Delaware official who confirmed there was no vaccination record for the woman under her name and birth date, documents added.
She was charged with two misdemeanour counts of violating Hawaii’s emergency rules to control the spread of Covid-19.
She had been in custody on 2,000 dollar (£1,450) bail until a judge released her at a hearing on Wednesday and scheduled another hearing in three weeks, according the public defender’s office.
State Public Defender James Tabe, whose office represented her at hearings this week, declined to comment on her case, adding it is not clear if she will hire her own lawyer or apply to have a public defender represent her.
In addition to the suspicious card, authorities determined that the travel information she provided listed she would be staying at a Waikiki Holiday Inn but did not include a reservation number and return flight information, court documents said.
An assistant manager at the hotel confirmed to Mr Lau that she did not have a reservation.
Mr Lau said in the court document that he tried to call the number she listed, but her voicemail was full. He said he emailed her and did not get a response.
He said he searched for her on Facebook and found a photo showing a “distinctive tattoo on her left hip area”.
The tattoo helped authorities find her at a Southwest Airlines counter when she was trying to leave Honolulu on August 28, the court document said.
She showed her ID and vaccination card to Mr Lau, who informed her she was being arrested for falsifying vaccination documents.
Other visitors to Hawaii have been arrested for fake vaccination cards, including a father and son from California, who appeared in court via Zoom on Wednesday and waived their rights to a jury trial.
