US health official pleads guilty to destroying 2,600 Covid vaccines

An upstate New York midwife pleaded guilty on Monday to federal fraud charges for her role in giving out thousands of Covid-19 immunisation cards to people who never received the vaccine, prosecutors said.

Kathleen Breault, 66, of Cambridge, admitted in Brooklyn federal court that she destroyed more than 2,600 coronavirus vaccines and issued a corresponding number of fraudulent vaccination record cards while working at Sage-Femme Midwifery from 2021 to 2022.

The Albany facility was an authorised site for Covid-19 vaccine administration at a time when many government agencies and private companies were requiring their workers to be immunised against the virus.

US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Breon Peace’s office said Breault and her co-conspirators also made over 2,600 false entries into a state database that tracked Covid-19 vaccine distribution.

Among those who were issued the fraudulent immunisation records were minors ineligible at the time to be vaccinated, as well as Canadian citizens who were not present in the country when they were purportedly vaccinated, according to prosecutors.

Breault agreed to repay more than $37,000 (approx Rs 30.90 lakh) in restitution for the destroyed vaccines and faces a maximum of five years in prison at her sentencing, Peace’s office said.

Breault’s lawyer said Monday that his client acted out of a "sense of profound concern" about the impact of the vaccination requirements.

"She believes that her actions were justified by moral necessity though she knows that she violated the law by defrauding the government," Michael Sussman said in an emailed statement.