Fake nurse sentenced

Saturday, Oct. 8, 2005 | 11:34 a.m.

A 26-year-old woman was sentenced to 12 to 34 months in prison Thursday for disguising herself as a nurse and stealing wallets and credit cards from Sunrise Hospital and a surgical clinic.

Tammie Macon used the stolen credit cards for shopping sprees at Boulevard and Meadows malls.

District Judge Jackie Glass chastised Macon before sentencing her, saying, "I don't think you get it. I don't think you understand what you do affects other people's lives."

Glass recited Macon's criminal history, which includes a theft-related arrest each year from 1998 to 2002. Glass noted that Macon had spent a year in jail and undergone intensive counseling, but that she kept stealing afterward.

"I don't know what will stop you," Glass told Macon.

In the case, Macon had pleaded guilty to one count of burglary and one count of possession of a credit card without the owner's consent.

One of Macon's victims was Nancy Harland, a nursing supervisor at Sunrise Hospital.

Harland, who works in an administrative area not open to the public, said she realized her wallet was missing from her purse near the end of her shift in December 2003.

When she notified her credit card companies, she learned that several of her cards had already been used. At the Nordstrom department store in the Boulevard mall, $1,075 had been charged on Harland's card. Harland later determined more than $4,000 had been fraudulently charged on her credit cards.

Videotapes from Nordstrom security cameras showed Macon, dressed like a nurse in a lab coat and scrub pants, buying merchandise with Harland's cards. A Nordstrom employee who handled the purchases said Macon "had several credit cards in the same name (Harland) and told her that she was a nurse and had just gotten off work."

The Nordstrum videotape was shown to Sunrise Hospital supervisors, but none recognized the woman making the purchases.

Harland's secretary, however, immediately recognized Macon. She told police the woman "had wandered into her office saying she was lost and looking for someone." The secretary said the woman stayed in the office for several minutes and then asked where the bathroom was before leaving.

She said the woman was "dressed as a nurse and constantly talking on a cell phone."

Sunrise's security director contacted his counterparts at area hospitals to warn them about a thief posing as a nurse. Valley Hospital and University Medical Center reported similar crimes.

A Crime Stoppers video about Harland's case led to Macon's arrest.

Veronica Huddleston, a nurse at the Goldring Surgical Clinic, saw the video and reported that she had been a victim of the same woman. Huddleston said the woman had been seen in the clinic on three different days in November and December 2003.

She said she first encountered Macon inside the employee locker room, dressed as a nurse. Huddleston said later that day she discovered several credit cards missing from her purse, which had been in her locker.

Huddleson later learned her stolen Dillard's credit card had been used 12 times at Meadows mall. The store's security cameras had recorded the purchases.

In January 2004 an anonymous caller to Crime Stoppers said the suspect was Macon and that she lived in a condo complex at Boulder Highway and Tropicana Avenue. But authorities did not find and arrest Macon until June 24.