Fake Nurses Still Treating Patients

Nurse in scrubs and mask outside hospital holding clipboard.

A Florida nursing school owner just pleaded guilty to selling 2,956 fake diplomas — and more than 2,200 nurses who bought their way into the profession may still be treating patients right now.

Story Snapshot

Operation Nightingale exposed a massive fraud ring that sold more than 7,600 fake nursing diplomas from three South Florida schools between 2016 and 2022.
Buyers paid up to $15,000 each for fake credentials — skipping years of required coursework and hands-on clinical training.
Federal authorities estimate roughly 2,300 nurses who bought fake diplomas passed the national board exam and obtained real licenses.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) handed suspect lists to state nursing boards, but license revocation is moving slowly and unevenly across the country.

One Woman Sold Nearly 3,000 Fake Nursing Diplomas

Carleen Noreus, 52, of Plantation, Florida, ran Carleen Home Health School as a diploma mill. From January 2019 through September 2022, she and her co-conspirators recruited aspiring nurses, then created and handed out fake transcripts and diplomas. The documents falsely showed that buyers had finished all required coursework and clinical training. They had done none of it. Noreus recently pleaded guilty to her role in the scheme.

Noreus was one piece of a much larger operation. Three South Florida schools — Siena College of Health, Palm Beach School of Nursing, and Sacred Heart International Institute — all sold fake nursing credentials. Together, the fraud ring distributed more than 7,600 bogus diplomas worth an estimated $114 million in total payments. All three schools are now closed, and federal prosecutors have charged defendants in two separate phases of the investigation.^[3]

How Untrained People Became Licensed Nurses

The scheme worked because the fake diplomas came from schools that were actually accredited. That made the documents look real. Buyers used them to qualify for the National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX), the national nursing board exam. About 37 percent of buyers passed the exam and became eligible for nursing licenses in states across the country.^[18] Once licensed, they got jobs at hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, and assisted living centers — working on real patients.

The fraud skipped the part that matters most. A nursing degree typically requires two years of school, including hands-on clinical training that makes up at least half the program. These buyers skipped all of it. They never took the classes. They never touched a patient in a supervised setting. They just paid for a piece of paper and showed up for work.^[4]

The Sellers Are Going to Prison — But the Nurses Are Still Out There

Federal convictions have been secured. Gail Russ, the registrar at Palm Beach School of Nursing, received 78 months in prison. Cassandre Jean, who ran a nursing review center in Brooklyn, New York, received three years and was ordered to forfeit nearly $4.7 million. Vilaire Duroseau, who operated a training center in West Orange, New Jersey, received 33 months. In total, 27 defendants were charged and convicted in 2023 alone.^[5]

NEW: South Florida nursing school owner pleads guilty after selling nearly 3,000 fake diplomas.@USAReding: “If you think cutting corners is worth the risk, think again." pic.twitter.com/fAmCcNNSid

— Florida’s Voice (@FLVoiceNews) June 19, 2026

The buyers are a different story. Federal officials have said the nurses who purchased fake diplomas will likely not face criminal charges. What they do face is potential license revocation — but that process runs through each individual state board, not a single federal authority. The FBI gave its suspect list to state boards and left the rest up to them.^[6] That fragmented approach is exactly why the problem lingers. Connecticut flagged 172 licenses. Delaware has published an active list of annulled nursing licenses tied to the scheme. But no centralized public count exists showing how many of the roughly 2,300 suspected nurses remain licensed and working today.^[7]

A Regulatory System That Cannot Keep Up With the Fraud It Uncovered

The honest assessment here is uncomfortable. The sellers got prosecuted. The system worked on that front. But the downstream problem — thousands of potentially unqualified nurses still holding active licenses — is being handled state by state, board by board, case by case. That is a slow process, and slow means patients are still being cared for by people who may have never learned how to do it properly. No amount of passing the written board exam replaces the clinical hours these buyers never completed.

The scale of this fraud is hard to overstate. Over $100 million changed hands. More than 7,600 fake diplomas entered the workforce pipeline.^[3] The nursing shortage created the demand, and these schools exploited it ruthlessly. State boards deserve credit for taking action, but the public deserves a full, transparent accounting of exactly how many fraudulent licenses remain active. Until that number hits zero, every patient who cannot verify their nurse’s credentials is carrying a risk they never agreed to take on.