MESA, AZ — A Mesa woman is accused of stealing another nurse’s identity and working at two Arizona hospices without a valid license.
The Arizona Attorney General’s Office says 41-year-old Christine Muturi Lewis was arrested on charges of fraud, identity theft and forgery.
ABC15 could not immediately reach Lewis for comment, and the court docket does not indicate whether she has legal representation.
Lewis was hired at Northern Arizona Hospice in Cottonwood this past August, according to court records. The AG alleges Lewis described herself as a “compassionate and highly skilled registered nurse (RN) with over 4 years of dedicated experience in hospice triage and on-call services.”
She said she worked as a triage nurse at a hospice in Las Vegas from 2019 to 2022.
She was using a nursing license from Colorado, according to court records.
Christine began working at [Northern Arizona Hospice] and did multiple patient visits with other nurses and visited one patient on her own, court records allege.
But officials at Northern Arizona Hospice became suspicious when they realized her nursing license was issued in 1980, which would have been just four years before her date of birth.
She resigned when confronted with this “discrepancy,” records say.
She was hired later the same month at Good Hands Hospice in Mesa, according to court records.
Acting on a tip, an undercover officer with the Arizona Attorney General’s Office met with Lewis in early November. The officer pretended to be interested in opening a hospice facility. During the meeting, the AG alleges Lewis stated she has a valid nursing license but does not currently use it.
Investigators say Lewis was using the license number of a registered nurse from Colorado who has the same first and last name. Many states, including Arizona, are part of a nurse licensure compact that allows nurses to practice in other states as long as their license in their home state is in good standing.
But investigators allege the Christine Lewis they arrested in Mesa, “has never been licensed as a registered nurse in Arizona, Nevada or any other known state.”
Her next court date is set for later this month.
Email ABC15 Investigator Anne Ryman at: anne.ryman@abc15.com, call her at 602-685-6345, or connect on X, formerly known as Twitter, and Facebook.
