A midwife who helped an upstate clinic hand out thousands of COVID vaccine cards to people who never took the vaccine pleaded guilty to a federal fraud charge in Brooklyn Monday.
Kathleen Breault, 66, admitted to her role in the vaccine scheme, which the feds say was run out of Sage-Femme Midwifery in Albany in 2021 and 2022, at a time when mandates required government and many private-sector employees to get the shot.
Breault and the clinic’s owner, Kelly McDermott, both certified nurse midwives, conspired to give out more than 2,600 vaccine cards to the unvaccinated, and destroyed vials of the vaccine as part of the scheme, the feds alleged in a 2023 indictment. McDermott’s case is still pending.
“My plea is guilty,” Breault told Brooklyn Federal Court Judge Rachel. “I gave vaccine cards to people who did not get medical vaccines.”
Based on federal guidelines, she could face 10 to 16 months in prison when she’s sentenced on Sept. 18. She must also pay more than $37,500 in restitution. The charge she pleaded to, conspiracy to defraud the United States, carries a maximum five-year prison term.
Breault and McDermott conspired to enroll Sage-Femme as an authorized COVID-19 vaccine administration site, which meant they could get genuine vaccine cards from the state Health Department, according to the feds.
They then solicited people who were looking to skip the vaccine but get their cards, and even held vaccination clinic days at Sage-Femme, the feds said. But instead of injecting the vaccines they received, they destroyed the doses and logged their patients into the state’s immunization database anyway, according to the feds.
Prosecutors referred to Sage-Femme as a small midwife practice, with locations in Albany, Sharon Springs and Saratoga, but said the fraud scheme turned it into one of the busiest Johnson & Johnson vaccination sites in the state.
The indictment identifies two patients who got cards without vaccines, and states that Breault herself didn’t take the vaccine but still got a card from a licensed practical nurse working at Sage-Femme.
In an October affidavit, Breault described herself as a “scapegoat for deep and abiding public rejection of the vaccine mandates” and said she “acted out of her conscience.” She was seeking to have the charge against her dismissed.
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