Law&Crime Sidebar - ‘Fake’ Florida Nurse Treated 4,400+ Patients: Sheriff

Episode Date: August 8, 2025

Autumn Bardisa, 29, is facing multiple fraud charges after authorities say she used another registered nurse’s license number to keep her job at an AdventHealth hospital in Palm Coast, Florida. In reality, Bardisa had failed the licensing exam to become an RN. Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber explains how Bardisa was able to get away with her alleged scheme for so long and how she got caught with Florida trial attorney Alexis Rosenberg.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: Stay Informed, Stay Safe – Check Public Records with TruthFinder now at https://www.truthfinder.com/lcsidebarHOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael Deininger, Christina O'Shea & Jay CruzScript Writing & Producing - Savannah Williamson & Juliana BattagliaGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. You are. Hold on. Hold on. We have plenty of time to talk. It's probably one of the most unusual cases that I think we have investigated since I've been sheriff and probably in my career. A Florida woman is out of a job and facing criminal charges. authorities say she was caught using another woman's identity to work as a nurse at a hospital.

Yeah, the sheriff says she had contact with more than 4,000 patients despite failing the national license exam to become a registered nurse. And you are not going to believe what else the sheriff revealed in a news conference. I am going to be sitting down with a Florida attorney to talk about the serious trouble Autumn Bardisa is now in. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by law and crime. I'm Jesse Weber. There is a lot of finger pointing going on right now in Florida's Palm Coast area, and this is all thanks to a woman's alleged scheme to fake her nursing license. 29-year-old Autumn Bardisa faces multiple fraud counts for her alleged deception.

But many say some blame should also be on the hospital for not catching her in a lie. Bardisa was arrested on Tuesday, August 5th in Palm Coast and seemed shocked and confused that she was being taken into custody. I'll tell you what? We got the body cam. Take a look. Hey there. Are you autumn? Yeah. Can you step out of the car from me, please? Sure. Oh, wait, what's going on? Put your hands on your back. Okay, my car is across the chair. Okay, all right, all right. Are you. Can you have? Hold on. Hold on.

We have plenty of time to talk. Just give us just a minute. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll take care about that. Do you have any other weapons? Julia 34-5? There's one female scare. So let me just tell you, there is a felony warrant for your arrest, okay? The bond, there is a bond on it, okay, which is good. It's, I believe, 70,000 is the bond amount, okay?

So you can bond out. What? For what? You know what all this is about? Not really. I kind of had something. with the Department of Health, but I had my license. Okay. And I thought it was squared away because it's clear and active.

Okay. So that does stem from this. We were contacted, not me directly, but a guy with Health and Human Services reached out to you a couple months ago. Yeah, and I had had an attorney, and I hadn't heard anything since. Okay, so the attorney reached out to him and said that you were currently being represented and all that other stuff. Yeah. I'd love to have a conversation with you, but if you're represented by an attorney in,

that's somebody that wants to be here for all that kind of questioning. I'm obviously limited on where this conversation can go. Can I know what? It has to do with medical fraud. I can get the exact thing. I don't remember off the top of my head, but it has to do medical and stuff, stuff like that. Okay. You have seven counts of identity theft and seven counts of practicing without a license.

And this does stem from everything with the Department of Health and Admin Health and all of that stuff. I mean, you're already aware of it. You've given statements to them to other investigators before. This is just your first time meeting me. Okay, I didn't. So, no, I've been with the other guys whenever they're doing their investigation, but I was not face-to-face with you. Okay. So.

Can I just follow her on my phone at least? Yeah, well, no, no worries. We'll let you do all. that, now, we can't just take the hand calls off you because, I mean, I know you're saying you're not going to fight, but I mean, you've seen TV, you watch the movies, like, you see, I've never had a record, I've never done anything. I'm not saying, I'm not saying you have, okay, but we just don't want to, we don't want it to escalate to some place that we, that we put it, because we take the hand calls off

you. But what we can do is get the person who's watching your child, and if you want to tell them what's going on, you certainly can. I mean, or if you want us to tell them. Can I call them, can, can you just. Can I call them, can you just I can take them off so I can call her on the phone at least. Yeah, yeah, that's fine. Okay. No, no, no, no, I'm going to grab your phone for you. We'll grab your phone and put on speaker for you.

Yeah, we'll grab, we'll grab your phone and put on a speaker. No, no, the point is that, is that I'm not saying you're going to do anything. We take the hand calls off that gives you, it puts it there, okay? Okay. It's not, or it's 0411. And can you go to a recent call? And then, yeah. 10, okay.

Yeah. Yeah. Looks like your front doors open. Yeah, please. Did you want to step inside out of the heat for a second? Yeah, I mean, anyone else inside the house? Okay, can these, I promise all. Can anyone, is anyone else inside the house?

Just my dog, but he's, can you just be taken off? I won't do anything. We can't take them off right for right now, okay? Come, look to your house. Here, I mean, I mean, like I said, just say, yeah, I'll just move my car in the driveway. Now arrest reports and a news conference from Flagler County Sheriff Rick Staley provided more information about the exact allegations here. We believe that there were over 4,400 patients that she was in one manner of, another that was involved in care at Advent Health Palm Coast, which is our newest hospital in Flagler County. So here's now the question. How is this possible? How could a person

con themselves into a job where they're going to interact with thousands of people potentially hold those people's lives in their hands? Well, according to Sheriff Staley, Bardisa graduated from Rasmussen University, March of 2022. Advent Health hired her in July of 2020. as an advanced nurse tech. She had reportedly indicated on her application that she was an education first registered nurse, which means she had the schooling to become an RN, but hadn't been licensed yet.

Nurse techs work under the direct supervision of an RN or a licensed practical nurse. Advent Health says she was hired with the expectation that she would take the National Counselor Licensure examination. Sheriff Staley says she did take the exam, but she failed it. So, in Advent Health, circled back to find out about the testing, Bardisa told them she was scheduled to take it.

Then a few months later, apparently told an inquiring HR specialist that she had passed the exam and obtained her license. The license number she provided came back as valid, but the thing about it was, allegedly with a different name. Yeah, Autumn Hood. Bardisa reportedly told the HR person that she'd recently gotten married, so her new last name was Rubba, and the license might not reflect that right away since it had just happened. The HR person told her to upload a copy of her marriage certificate to an Advent Health

database, but it turns out that was never done, and then no one seemingly followed up on it. This is from the arrest documentation, quote, due to Autumn Bardesa's fraudulent use of another person's identification information and Advent Health's oversight on the discrepancies, autumn was allowed to start the nurse residency program where she graduated on June 20th, 20, 24, and accepted a position as a registered nurse at Advent Health. So how was her alleged fraud uncovered? Well, she got a promotion. Yeah, early January, 2024, Autumn was offered a promotion to charge nurse, which sparked

interests by her colleagues. An unidentified nurse checked the status of Autumn's license and discovered that the only license that Autumn Bardisa had was a delinquent search. certified nursing assistant license. The CNA license had expired on Friday, May 31st, 2024. So this prompted Advent Health to start an inquiry, which led to asking Autumn for her pre-requested marriage license to confirm her licensed identity. And then it says autumn gave several excuses and ultimately could not provide the documentation

and was terminated on Wednesday, January 2nd, 2025. So Bardisa is facing seven charges of practicing a health care profession without a license. seven counts of fraudulent use of personal identification, and according to arrest documentation that was filed with the court, from June 2024 through December 2024, Autumn Bardisa had acted as a registered nurse for approximately 4,486 documented patients of Advent health. So we wanted to do a check on Bardisa's criminal history. So we turned to the powerful background checker, Truth Finder, that we use all the time. And all we had to do was enter Autumn Bardisa's name.

and the state that she lives in, and it immediately returned information about her, and I'll tell you what, we were able to confirm through court records that Bardisa has been cited multiple times for driving offenses, including speeding and careless driving, nothing connected to fraud, though. By the way, long crime, we partner with TruthFinder. We use it to get details on people involved in our stories, but even if you don't work in true crime, it can be an amazing resource to give you some peace of mind. Why?

It's one of the largest public record search services in the United States, and with a paid subscription service, you can get access to unlimited reports about almost anyone. So right now, you can get 50% off of your first month of confidential background reports. Just go to truthfinder.com slash LC sidebar. So now to talk about this bizarre case and get insight into potential consequences, I want to bring in Florida trial attorney, Alexis Rosenberg, Alexis, great to see you. I've heard of cons before. This one's different. Well, Jesse, thank you for having me. I mean, there's a lot to unpack here. One of the first things that jumps out at me is what the heck was going on in Advent Health? They have a duty to make sure that their health care professionals are appropriately

credentialed and have license before they set them loose on patients. What is the legal exposure for Advent Health? Because this is not, you know, catch me if you can. This is a situation where, well, a little bit in the movie, but a little bit, I mean, you're talking about somebody who really didn't have the authority, the license to treat these patients in the way that she presumably did. What is the, do they go back and look at the cases of every one of these people she treated? And if, God forbid, something happened to them, can Advent Health now be on the hook because of what this person may or may not have done? I mean, yes, and these are just allegations at this point. But just taking it as true, you have to wonder what the ripple effects are. are. Well, first, I think you're aging both of us with the catch me if you can. But yes, Avent Health does have

exposure. They have an obligation to make sure that their, like I said before, their professionals are appropriately licensing credentials. So you also have the issue with, there's potentially an issue with billing. I'm assuming that they have billed what's called government entitlements such as Medicare and Medicaid. And they've gotten paid for these services. services that were fraudulently billed in essence because this particular provider wasn't appropriately licensed. So they have that issue. Along with potential if she, and we don't know yet, if she created or caused any like harm, physical harm to these patients. But if let's say that she did and there's a malpractice lawsuit, then they would potentially be liable

civilly for that as well. If Medicare and Medicaid potentially believe, believe that Advent had knowledge of this or should have had knowledge, there potentially could be a cause of action for Medicare and Medicaid fraud potentially on the criminal level. By the way, my understanding is she got fired from Advent Health months ago, and in that body cam video, she's wearing scrubs. Like, did she, you know, take the test? Did she get a real license? Did she get a job somewhere else? That's something that would confuse me. Well, it's definitely something of a concern. Is she still practicing somewhere else?

Did she get someone else to hire? You know, what jumped out at me about this story was also that the number that she was using for this other autumn actually worked for Avon Health as well. So I'm a little confused why when they put it in their system with that number that it didn't pop up that the real autumn was at a different location for the same company. It's a good point. It's a good point. Okay, so Sheriff Staley explained a little bit more about this investigation and more specifically the charges that she now faces. They fired her two months later. They notified us of the incident, which began a seven-month investigation. And the reason it took seven months is you have to remember that we are trying to thread the needle on HIPAA laws. And so we have to have victims. We don't know who's. the victims are and we also have to work with the hospital to obtain victim names and so that requires subpoenas and investigation and that takes a while to complete now with 4,000 over 4,400 victims if you will in this case we worked

with the Seventh Circuit judicial state attorney's office which is R.J. Larissa to determine how you can't really charge 4,400 counts. I guess you could, but it's going to significantly bogged down the criminal justice system. So the time that she was employed as what they thought was a fully certified RN was seven months. So they charged one count for each month that she worked in. that she worked at the hospital as allegedly a fully licensed authorized RN. So that's why it's seven counts, seven counts of practicing medicine without a license, basically, and seven counts of identity fraud.

You go to a hospital and you trust that the hospital staff is fully licensed, prepared to serve you in whatever your medical need is. And so you have to have faith in the system. And I think in this case it showed that there was some flaws, at least in follow-up, and a very trustworthy hiring process when you say, I just got married, that's why my last name is different. And they asked her to provide, but there was no follow-up. So I think there were some mistakes made in the hiring process, but you can deal with Advent Health on that because we only look at the criminal case and what led up to it, what caused it.

To our knowledge, there's no serious injury or death related to this incident. And, you know, she must have done a good job, even though she wasn't licensed because they were looking at a promotion to the charge nurse, which is what triggered the review of her file. and ultimately how she got caught. Honestly, that's a, Alexis, that's a good point. I mean, we were talking about what was her treatment like? If she was going to get a promotion, she was probably doing good job. Look, if that is true that no one was harmed, that would be the best news.

It's wild to say the least. And I am curious, you know, he makes the point you can't charge or you could, but it'd be so impractical over 4,000 counts. Does the way that they're charging her make sense to you are 14 total charges enough, given the scope of her alleged crimes? Well, and I handle cases that have to do with health care fraud in New York and Florida. And I have to say that it's a little more complicated with them proving this because it's not simply that she necessarily held herself out because it was a nurse,

unlike a doctor's scenario. So it really depends on those treatment records. If she was providing, let's say, you know, doing things in those records that reflect that she was acting, and doing duties such as an R-N. So I think that's when he was getting into proving it. It would boggle it down where we just do seven. I mean, she's basing some serious charges based on the seven counts. Really, there's mandatory minimums just for using the other person's information

that attached just to that opposed to the practicing, you know, the medicine. Well, also what jumped out at me is that he was saying something about HIPAA. And what it is contained in the information that's out there is that Evan Health was dragging their feet, turning over that information. There was a subpoena that was issued, and they kept on trying to get extensions. So it was them that was on top of everything else, dragging their feet, to actually provide law enforcement with how many patients she actually allegedly treated and the record stating what she actually did in that alleged treatment. By the way, as far as I understand at the time of this recording, there is no outcry witness, right? No specific person who came forward to say they were a victim to get, you know, an investigation

going. Does that make a difference in how she's charged or how the case moves forward? Not with the charges that she's been charged with. For instance, the misusing of the information is more or less that you look at, depending on the account, the count, whether it's first to receive. second degree or third degree whether um you know how many victims in this case there's really only one victim that she sold their personal information and then how much financial gain that she got now uh you know if you look up the average uh nurse RN in florida makes about 80,000 she was doing this for

seven months so you know we're under what would be first degree of 50,000 and we're in between and there's mandatory minimums for that now with the practicing medical medicine, it's not really necessarily, like he said, you could do 4,000 because there's 4,000 alleged victims. But I think what they did is once you get, it just gets ridiculous doing the seven is probably, was probably a good approach. Now Sheriff Staley mentioned that it took quite a while to get all the information they needed because of pushbacks and delays on the part of Advent Health, but he made sure that people knew

that the sheriff's office didn't have any of the victim's actual medical records. Take a listen. So let me make it very clear. We did not receive any medical records. So what the victims in this case or the patients were in the hospital for is unknown to us. All we have is their name because they were a victim of the crime.

Lexus, just to make this a little bit clarify this point, how complicated is it to bring your case like this to court? You know, it's a lot to consider private. laws, hospital policies related to the release of information, witnesses who may be reluctant to talk because a lot of different issues, fear of retaliation, embarrassment, you know, you're trying to make sense of what the impact is that she might have had at this medical health institution. What do you think? So the counts related to stealing the one individual is, it seems to be pretty straightforward.

The accounts related to practicing without a license, once you get in court, they'll be able to get subpoenas. There's also ways, even with HIPAA, to turn over records that you can redact certain things. You could get releases. It's not super complicated once they've now filed charges to get that necessary information. I think once it's tried, a good defense attorney is really going to attack those records to say, listen, she really wasn't acting as. an RN. Because remember, she was employed for, I believe, almost two years prior, not under or acting as an RN. So, you know, you would really look at those records and say, okay, what's contained in the records that they're saying she actually did wouldn't necessarily qualify

for someone acting as an RN. And that would be, you know, a strategy to take as a defense attorney to get this down. Now, the taking of the personal information, I've think that's going to be a really hard to overcome. What could her defense be? The defense for, I don't see a defense for taking the personal information. I do see, like I had stated before, the defense that even though they had given her for those seven months that label or title as an RN, that she actually was still not performing RN duties. And that's really going to lie in those medical records.

By the way, talking about that, I want to talk for a moment about the woman who's identity that Bardisa allegedly used to get this RN position. So according to the sheriff, the woman attended the same university at the same time, but they didn't know each other. Take a look. You know, I would say this is greed or wanting a job so bad that you would manipulate a system and assume somebody's identity to be able to practice. You went to school, but you failed the exam. And instead of, and she told them that she was taking an exam, but that's when she produced the identity. And the other ironic part of this case is, and maybe this is how she found this particular individual, she found somebody with her first name, different last name.

But how she was able to find is they actually went to school together, but they did not know. each other. Wow. So somehow she found it same university, same hiring class, if you will, through Advent, but they never met, they never knew each other. Did you never find the other autumn? We did, and I can tell you this has made her life havoc, if you can imagine, with all the licensing that's required by the state of Florida and by nationally to have somebody, a

assume your identity. This is certainly worse than credit card fraud, you know, and taking somebody's identity to get a credit card or a mortgage. You're dealing with the lives potentially of patients that have been admitted. So it's a very unusual case, probably one of the most unusual cases that I think we have investigated since I've been sheriff and probably in my career. Oh, and get this, both Ottom's worked for Advent Health. The other woman worked at a hospital in a different part of the state. Now, Alexis, you know, one would think that Advent health systems would catch that two different people were using the same license number. This, at the very least, is a wake up call to them.

Well, I think it goes beyond. I think, in my opinion, it's complete negligence on their part that, yes, you're right. She was in their system, the real autumn, was in their system already, so that should have raised red flags. But just the follow-up, the whole process, in my opinion, they were negligent. But, yeah, I mean, I honestly, I disagree with the sheriff, though. I don't know how uncommon, I think, because we have the two autumn's, because in Miami, you hear about, you know, people practicing medicine without a license on the regular. Oh, yeah, that's a thing. Oh, boy.

Maybe we've got to dedicate another sidebar to that. All right, well, I'll tell you what, when we stick with Bardisa, though, for a second. More of her alleged misconduct was detailed in court documents. So the chief nursing officer for Advent Health was tasked with doing an investigation and uncovered that she'd allegedly given drugs to fellow employees, including the weight loss drug, Ozempic. Quote, her statement further mentioned that an unidentified employee came forward stating that they had purchased prescription medication from auto. Bardisa, which was identified as semaglutide, commonly referred to as OZempec. The same unidentified employee stated that Autumn Bardisa had previously administered a birth control injection to a second unidentified employee.

It had not been identified by Advent Health where the prescriptions were filled. As if the allegations couldn't get worse, Alexis, what do you make about this? And by the way, why no drug charges? Why no drug charges either? that's a good question. But I mean, more important, so at some time during this, she did have her certified nursing assistant certificate license. I think it expired right before she, you know, the year before. So I'm not sure in time when all that happened. But as a certified nursing assistant, you're not allowed to inject medicine. So the injection is a problem under that license.

So that would go towards what we were talking about. Was she doing stuff that was something that an RN could do opposed to someone that did not have an RN license. So you're not allowed to dispense. She wouldn't be allowed to prescribe medication and nor would she be allowed to inject anybody with a medication. So that's a problem and those, even though they're being marked now as unidentified, I'm pretty sure that it's going to come out who those are. It sounds almost what you were saying, Jesse, that this person who came forward was a little

unhappy about them maybe getting her getting promoted and the other person not and went on a deep dive to find out you know what what was about this person that is definitely a possibility and I'm sure people would have a lot of more questions for Advent health right so multiple media outlets they reached out to Advent health about these allegations about what happened here hospital responded we do not comment on private personnel matters or pending legal matters all inquiries should be directed to the Flagler county sheriff's office now Bardiso was given a $5,000 bond for each charge, so that's $70,000 total. And as of this recording on Friday, August 8th, Flagler County inmate information shows

she has not been released. And Raymond is scheduled for September 2nd. This is after the Labor Day holiday weekend, and we will continue to see what happens next. Alexis Rosenberg, thank you so much for coming on. Appreciate it. Thank you for having me, as always. And that's all we have for you right now here on Sidebar, everybody. Thank you so much for joining us.

And as always, please subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you should get your podcasts. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time.