A woman who posed as a nurse to treat diabetic children was sentenced to spend between just over a year and a half to four years in prison Wednesday.
Crystal Scott, 45, pleaded guilty in May to practicing or offering to practice nursing without a license and forgery. Police said she had forged doctors’ signatures and used the licensing number of a real nurse who shared her name.
As the defendant listened tearfully, parents delivered emotional statements to District Judge Danielle Pieper about how they felt betrayed by someone they believed to be a trustworthy medical provider working in an area of medicine with scarce resources locally.
“What we thought was finally finding a medical professional who cared was actually finding a woman who was exploiting a desperate need to keep our chronically ill child alive, preying on our fear and using it to gain our trust,” Tia Stanfield said.
Allison Anderson, a registered nurse, said her daughter was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at just 8 years old.
There are few doctors for children with type 1 diabetes and Anderson said she met Scott at the office of one of those doctors, where Scott was introduced as a registered nurse and dietitian.
“I trusted her,” Anderson told the judge.
Eventually, Scott decided to go out on her own and start a “concierge clinic” called Glucose N Glow, where she performed Botox injections and treated children with diabetes, Anderson said.
“I understand that I was deceived, but I still ask myself how I missed it and how I trusted the wrong person with my child’s health and those are questions that I have to live with,” she said.
Another victim defended Scott in a statement read by Chief Deputy Attorney Dena Rinetti, saying that the defendant’s behavior was wrong, but that she acted with good intentions.
Rinetti argued that Scott engaged in “an ongoing fraud that endangered the lives of many, many children” by practicing nursing without a license and breaking the trust of patient after patient.
“She defrauded and deceived and for what end?” asked the prosecutor. “I don’t think it’s necessarily money. I think the defendant just liked to kind of be the Florence Nightingale, be the one that everyone looked to for advice and for guidance.”
A school nurse who noticed that “something wasn’t right” was Scott’s undoing, Rinetti said.
Police said the Clark County School District nurse noticed irregularities in what purported to be a doctor’s note authorizing the administration of insulin for a student, then reviewed other medical orders.
After Scott’s initial arraignment, the defendant posted a picture from Albania with a hashtag that indicated she was removing abroad, according to Rinetti, who added that Scott never missed a court date.
Scott apologized but continued to insist that she was a nurse, despite her guilty plea.
“I am a nurse,” she said. “I am a healthcare professional who spent much of her life trying to help people.”
She told the judge about suffering abuse and poverty as a child, watching her friends die in Iraq while serving in the Army and caring for her son, who suffers from medical issues and uses a glucose monitor.
She also said that she had engaged in mental health treatment, recently underwent surgery for skin cancer and may need heart surgery in the future.
Defense attorney Jack Buchanan said Scott did not hurt people and may have even helped the children she treated.
He also said his client had a history in the medical field, including working as a medic in the military. She took medical courses and worked in medical offices, he said.
Doctors oversaw her work and she believed she was acting appropriately, he said, adding, “She lost her way.”
The judge questioned Buchanan about Scott’s licensing. He told Pieper that he did not think his client was ever a registered nurse.
Rinetti pointed out that military records said that Scott was supervised by a physician, nurse or nurse practitioner in her role as a medical specialist.
“Put your hands behind your back,” Pieper told Scott after hearing from the parents. “You’re going to prison.”
Contact Noble Brigham at nbrigham@reviewjournal.com.
