A 29-year-old Florida woman who posed as a nurse and treated over 4,400 patients at a hospital will not serve any time in jail.
Last year, authorities arrested Autumn Bardisa of Palm Coast, Florida, on seven counts of practicing as a health care professional without a license and seven counts of fraudulent use of personal identification information.
The Flagler County Sheriff’s Office reported that, at the time of her arrest, she had worked at AdventHealth Palm Coast Parkway Hospital for almost two years. The hospital fired her when a coworker discovered she lacked a nursing license, which was revealed when she was promoted.
Despite “never holding a valid nursing license,” she “participated in medical services” for 4,486 patients during her tenure at the hospital from June 2024 to January 2025, according to the Sheriff’s Office.
“This is one of the most disturbing cases of medical fraud we’ve ever investigated,” Flagler County Sheriff Rick Staly said following her arrest. “This woman potentially put thousands of lives at risk by pretending to be someone she was not and violating the trust of patients, their families, AdventHealth and an entire medical community.”
How did she treat so many patients without a valid nursing license?
Bardisa gave the hospital a license number that matched her first name, Autumn, but had a different last name, and informed them that she had passed the test during the hiring process.
In an attempt to account for the disparity, Bardisa stated that she had recently married and changed her last name. The hospital asked her to present her marriage license as proof, but she never did.
However, according to the Sheriff’s Office, the name and license number she gave belonged to another nurse with the same first name, Autumn, who worked for AdventHealth at a different hospital.
This week, Autumn Bardisa pleaded no contest to one count of unlicensed practice of health care profession and one count of fraudulent use of personal identification information.
The judge in the case accepted her no contest plea and said that although her actions were serious, “jail time was not necessary.” Instead, the judge gave her five years of probation.
During her probation, Bardisa cannot work in the medical field. The judge also ordered her to write an apology to the nurse whose identity she used and to serve 50 hours of community service.
The judge, the sheriff, and the defendant spoke about the decision
“There is zero evidence that countless lives were on the line, zero evidence,” the judge said. “… Incredibly poor judgment and lied to her employer, but this is not the case of a person coming off the street with no medical training.”
Following the judge’s decision, Flagler County Sheriff Rick Staly said, “Nursing is a noble profession about caring for those in need, but there is a right way and wrong way to go about it, and she chose the wrong way by using a real nurse’s license. Because she chose to circumvent the rules, she ruined her career, and she potentially endangered patients.”
WESH News reports Bardisa, who eventually passed her nursing test in February of 2025, said after the sentencing, “I mean, everyone regrets not crossing their I’s and dotting their T’s, making sure everything is complete. But I think a mistake should not ruin someone’s life.”