Source: Office of United States Attorneys
LOS ANGELES – A San Luis Obispo County woman who operated a medical clinic pleaded guilty today to misusing physicians’ medical identities to create hundreds of fraudulent immigration documents to help immigrants obtain lawful status in the United States and for using a deceased doctor’s credentials to acquire and distributed controlled substances.
Chantelle Lavergne Woods, 54, of Nipomo, pleaded guilty to one count of presentation of false immigration document or application and one count of possession with intent to distribute phendimetrazine. Woods is free on $10,000 bond.
According to her plea agreement, Woods formerly operated and managed a clinic in Arroyo Grande that at times was known as “Medical Weight Loss and Immigration Services.” Beginning in February 2021, Woods knowingly misused the identities of three physicians to create hundreds of fraudulent documents pertaining to medical examinations of individuals seeking to register for a lawful permanent resident (LPR) card – commonly known as a “green card” – or otherwise adjust their immigration status.
United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) requires the submission of a medical examination and vaccination record that assess several physical and mental health factors to determine if an applicant is inadmissible to the United States on health-related grounds.
Federal law requires licensed physicians to perform these examinations and then sign a form attesting, in part, that the physician performed the medical examination and truly and accurately completed the form based on the examination and the information provided by the applicant. Woods completed at least 328 such forms on which she falsely included the signature of medical doctors, thereby representing that the individual had been medically examined by a doctor, when in fact they had not.
At times, there were no physicians present at the clinic, Woods acted without physician authorization, and the clinic did not provide legitimate medical services.
Woods further admitted that – from February 2021 to June 2022 – she used the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) registration number of a deceased physician to order more than 150,000 tablets of controlled substances, including testosterone, codeine, alprazolam (sold under the brand name Xanax), diethylpropion (an appetite suppressant), and phentermine (weight-loss medicine).
In July 2022, at the clinic, Woods knowingly and intentionally possessed with intent to distribute phendimetrazine – a weight-loss drug – as well as a loaded firearm.
United States District Judge Fernando M. Olguin scheduled a July 31 sentencing hearing, at which time Woods will face a statutory maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison for each count.
The Drug Enforcement Administration’s Ventura Resident Office Tactical Diversion Squad and USCIS Fraud Detection and National Security investigated this matter.
Assistant United States Attorney Jeremy K. Beecher of the Transnational Organized Crime Section is prosecuting this case.