A woman who was arrested last year after she treated thousands of patients at a Florida hospital while posing as a registered nurse has been sentenced to probation as part of a plea deal, officials said.
Autumn Bardisa, 29, pleaded no contest to unlicensed practice of health care and fraudulent use of an I.D. in exchange for a 5-year probation term, Flagler County Sheriff’s Office officials said Wednesday.
She also has to serve 50 hours of community service, must write an apology letter to the nurse whose license number she stole, after forfeited her nursing license, which she earned after her arrest, to the Florida Department of Health.
Bardisa is also prohibited from practicing medicine during her probation.
Bardisa was arrested in August 2025 on seven counts of practicing a health care profession without a license and seven counts of fraudulent use of personal identification information following a seven-month investigation, the sheriff’s office said.
Investigators said Bardisa had been hired by AdventHealth Palm Coast Parkway as an advanced nurse tech in July of 2023.
When Bardisa was offered a promotion this past January, a fellow employee checked the status of her license and discovered her certified nursing assistant license was expired.
Investigators discovered the license number she’d provided belonged to another nurse named Autumn who was also employed by AdventHealth and who had attended school with Bardisa, officials said.
Detectives also determined Bardisa had participated in providing medical services to 4,486 people from June 2024 through January 2025, despite never holding a valid nursing license.
“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,” said Flagler County Sheriff Rick Staly. “Rightfully, she won’t be able to work in the medical field for a minimum of three years and up to five years. I commend our detectives that worked hard to build the case to expose her crimes and impersonation. We did our job by successfully investigating this case. I also respect the prosecutor and the courts in the final sentencing decisions.”