A former VA nurse has been sentenced to 60 months in prison. Enrique Martinez Mathews who worked at the VA medical center Miami was given the sentence on March 2, 2016 after she pleaded guilty to changing and fabricating some computer records. The charge was obstruction and computer related fraud. This was in violation of Title 18, United States Code, sections 1519 and 1030.
VA Nurse sentenced to 60 months in prison:
The announcement was made by Wifredo A. Ferrer who is the attorney for the Southern District of Florida. He was teamed up with Monty Stokes who was the special agent that led the investigation, the Office of Inspector General, Criminal Investigations Division and of course the department of veteran affairs.
According to the ruling, the nurse intervened in an investigation at the medical center. The investigation involved the death of a veteran who was in the care of Enrique. The findings concluded that Martinez did actually alter the records of the patient who was recovering in the Surgical Intensive care unit at the facility. These actions made the doctors make some wrong decisions regarding the treatment of the patient an eventually led to his death. She once again tried to alter even more records to try to hide her wrongdoing.
Ferrer said that it’s his duty to protect the veterans of the country. He said that it’s a national duty more than anything else and the VA administration also played a huge role in making the investigation a success. Monty Stokes also said that this needless alteration of the records led to the death of a national servant and future steps are needed to be taken to prevent these crimes.
Let’s all hope that this tragic event never takes place again and the steps needed to prevent this from happening are also taken immediately.
