A Florida woman who posed as a nurse and treated more than 4,400 patients without a license was sentenced this week to probation and community service after pleading no contest, avoiding jail time in a case authorities once called deeply disturbing.

The Flagler County Sheriff’s Office said Wednesday that 29-year-old Autumn Bardisa, of Palm Coast, entered the guilty plea on Tuesday to unlicensed practice of healthcare and fraudulent use of identification.

Circuit Judge Dawn Nichols withheld adjudication and sentenced Bardisa to five years of probation and 50 hours of community service as part of the agreement.

She must also write a letter of apology to the nurse whose license number she used.

As part of the plea deal, Bardisa forfeited a nursing license she obtained after her arrest to the Florida Department of Health and is barred from working in the medical field during her probation.

Bardisa was originally charged with seven counts of unlicensed practice of health care and seven counts of fraudulent use of personal identification information following a seven-month investigation.

Authorities said she treated more than 4,400 patients between June 2024 and January 2025, while falsely presenting herself as a licensed nurse at AdventHealth.

Investigators determined Bardisa never held a valid nursing license during that time and instead used the license number of another nurse who shared her first name.

The case stemmed from a months-long investigation involving state and federal health agencies after hospital officials discovered Bardisa had allegedly used another nurse’s license number and falsified records to land a job as an advanced nurse technician.

Investigators said Bardisa initially applied under an “education first” designation, typically used for nursing graduates who have not yet passed their licensing exam. She later claimed she had completed the exam and provided a license number belonging to a different nurse with the same first name.

To explain inconsistencies, Bardisa told hospital staff she had recently changed her last name after getting married but never produced documentation when asked to verify the claim.

Despite the missing paperwork, Bardisa was promoted in January 2025, according to investigators. Concerns surfaced when a coworker independently checked her credentials and found she only held an expired certified nursing assistant license, prompting hospital officials to notify authorities.

The scheme unraveled after that discovery, leading to her termination and a broader criminal investigation involving multiple agencies.

Flagler County Sheriff Rick Staly said Bardisa’s actions put patients at risk and undermined trust in the medical profession.

“Nursing is a noble profession about caring for those in need, but there is a right way and wrong way to go about it, and she chose the wrong way by using a real nurse’s license,” Staly said, adding that her actions “potentially endangered patients.”

Staly said Bardisa “ruined her career” and will be unable to work in the medical field for at least three years and up to five years under the terms of her probation.

Authorities previously described the case as one of the most significant incidents of medical fraud investigated by the agency.

Officials said anyone who believes they may have been treated by Bardisa can contact the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office.

Dan Payne struggles to raise money to feed the homeless population through his Montreal charity, DIFY.

“The first year I had to pay everything out of my pocket,” he told Global News from his home office in the city’s Notre-Dame-de-Grâce (NDG) neighbourhood.

So he was overjoyed when, a week ago, someone sent an email offering to make a $2,500 donation to the charity. With that amount, Payne said he could feed 3,000 people.

“I’m a good shopper,” he quipped.

After he replied to the would-be donor, the charity got a followup email from them with an offer of even more money.

“‘We’re gonna send you actually $5,000 and we’d like you to give the $2,500 to a needy mother with a sick child,’” Payne said, quoting the message.

The retiree said that’s when he became suspicious. A few days afterwards, the charity got a delivery via FedEx — a cheque for $5,000 supposedly issued by a company in Ontario. The document had the company’s name and address, but with a slightly modified logo.

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A company representative refused to be interviewed.

After the cheque was delivered, Payne recalled, the scammer contacted him numerous times expressing urgency. That’s a common technique fraudsters use, according to Terry Cutler, who runs cybersecurity company Cyology Labs.

“They use a sense of urgency to make you do stuff that you’re not supposed to do,” he explained. “That’s why it’s important you take a step back, breathe.”

Refusing to take the bait, Payne said he exercised due diligence and contacted a representative at the Ontario company named on the cheque.

“They got back to me and said it was fraudulent,” Payne recalled.

Cutler explained that these kinds of cheque fraud have been happening for years. The scammer issues a cheque to the target person or organization, then asks for a refund or, as in Payne’s case, asks for some of the cash to be given to a third party.

The problem is that it takes banks days to clear cheques after deposit, even if the account says the funds are available, Cutler pointed out.

“You go and refund the person, but then you realize shortly after that, that the cheque bounced,” he said.

So the victim loses the cash.

In their 2024 annual report, Montreal police state the number of fraud cases in their territory rose from 2,417 in 2019 to 11,617 in 2024.

“The increase in the number of frauds reported to the SPVM in 2024 can be attributed mainly to more incidents of card fraud (for example, bank card) and computer fraud,” the report states.

Organizations of all stripes are targeted. But community workers like David Chapman, executive director of Resilience Montreal, which serves the unhoused community, stressed that it’s their organizations that have the most to lose.

“Fraudsters picking on community organizations which are working with marginalized populations — it’s pretty much the low of the low,” he stated.

He told Global News that he’s seen a growth in the number of phishing attempts targeting his organization, which has forced staff to be more vigilant.

“You have to spend money to protect yourself from this,” he said.

Funds, he and others point out, that could be spent on potentially saving someone’s life.

Payne said he reported his incident to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre.

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Urgency, panic and fear are all characteristics of grandparent scams.

“Which often causes people to have a blocked sense of reality. They don’t know what to do. They freeze,” Winnipeg Police Service (WPS) Const. Dani McKinnon said.

It’s a scheme that impersonates familiar or authoritative voices and can con seniors out of thousands of dollars. It’s also a pressing issue in Manitoba.

The Canadian Anti Fraud Centre found that Manitobans 60 and over reported losing nearly $350,000 in 2024.

“These are under-reported. We get 5-10 per cent of what we actually think is happening out there,” WPS Insp. Jennifer McKinnon said.

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Northern Manitoba seniors targeted in ‘grandparent scam,’ RCMP say

Now, the Manitoba government, WPS and seniors support services group A & O are trying to combat this serious issue by launching a new campaign.

“Just Hang Up is aimed at at protecting older adults from financial and emotionally devastating outcomes related to prevalent phone scams,” Dani McKinnon said.

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The Manitoba government provided $134,000 from the Criminal Property Forfeiture Fund to fund this campaign.

“When in doubt about a phone call, just hang up,” Manitoba Justice Minister Matt Wiebe said.

Carmen Nedohin, past chair of the Canadian Association of Retired Persons, says she gets up to six scam emails and calls a day.

“Because I’ve seen them so many times, can distinguish between what is a scam and what is reality, but I know that isn’t always the case,” Nedohin said.

Nedohin and fellow seniors advocate Connie Newman encourage families to use a safe word for scam prevention.

“We did it with kids going to school. If someone comes to pick you up, they have to have a code word. It’s the same thing for older adults,” Newman, who is the executive director of Manitoba Association of Senior Communities, said.

As for those who might have been contacted by a potential frauded?

“We encourage you to report, even if there is no financial loss,” Dani McKinnon said.

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Ontario Provincial Police said they were able to recover some funds from a “tech service fraud” scam in which the scammer pretended to be a representative from Bell Canada.

The OPP said the scam was reported on Feb. 19 when an Oxford Mills, Ont., resident received a phone call from someone impersonating a Bell Canada employee.

The employee called about upgrading the router due to the recent installation of fibre-optic lines, police said.

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“The victim was instructed to download remote entry software to her device, at which point the bad actor informed the victim that a virus had been found, requiring the matter to be escalated,” police said.

Police said the victim was told to log in to online banking, where the scammer manipulated the victim’s accounts, causing the victim to believe an overpayment had been made.

“The bad actor directed the victim to attend their financial institution on multiple occasions where wire transfers of the ‘overpayment’ were made to a US financial institution,” police said.

The OPP said it contacted the United States Secret Service about the wire transfers, who contacted the U.S. bank that received the transfers.

“As a result, the victim’s financial institution will be working on recovering portions of the funds,” the OPP said.

The force did not disclose how much money was lost in the scam.

There is no word on any arrests involving the scam.

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