EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) — A Las Cruces woman who is facing charges in New Mexico as an “imposter nurse” is also facing charges in Texas for allegedly applying for and working as a nurse without a valid license here in El Paso, according to court documents obtained by KTSM.
Margarita Gonzalez, 43, is facing four counts of nursing regulation violations for working without a license in El Paso, according to the Texas Attorney General’s Office. Court documents show that she worked at four different locations in El Paso.
Earlier this week, the New Mexico Department of Justice reported that Gonzalez has been charged with 34 counts of misconduct, including identity theft, nursing without a license, abuse of a resident, distribution of a controlled substance to a minor and fraud totaling over $25,000.
In October 2025, the Attorney General of Texas Medicaid Fraud Control Unit opened a criminal fraud investigation into allegations that Gonzalez “was fraudulently seeking and securing employment as a registered nurse by using other people’s nursing numbers.”
The Attorney General’s Office learned through its investigation that the suspect never held a current or valid nursing license in the state of Texas, according to court documents.
In one of the cases, Gonzalez applied for and obtained employment with Angels of Care Pediatric Home. She portrayed herself as a registered nurse using a nursing license number belonging to a nurse from Laredo and who had the same name as the suspect, according to court documents.
During the hiring process, she claimed that she graduated from nursing school in 2003. She was hired and worked there as a registered nurse from January 2023 through May 2024. She performed duties “requiring nursing licensure, including medical care, administering medication and assessing patients at the facility,” according to court documents.
In May 2024, Angels of Care was made aware by the Texas Board of Nursing that Gonzalez falsified hiring documents and misrepresented herself as a nurse to gain employment, court documents said. She was fired and she reportedly said on a document that she was given that she was “bringing all the paperwork. Everything is legit.”
During her time at Angels of Care Pediatric Home, she earned more than $122,000 in wages, according to court documents.
In another case, Gonzalez worked for Patriot Rehabilitation and Wellness Center from Nov. 1 2024 through late January 2025, earning more than $14,000 there, according to court documents.
She allegedly used a nursing license number belonging to a nurse in Austin with the same name as the suspect. During the hiring process, she claimed she previously worked at Providence Hospital as a registered nurse. While at Patriot Rehabilitation, she performed duties requiring a nursing license, including providing medical care, administering medication and assessing patients. She was fired in January 2025 from that job, according to court documents.
In a third case in El Paso, the suspect worked as a charge nurse at Edgemere Estates from July 30, 2025 through late August 2025, earning nearly $3,800 in wages. Like the other jobs, she performed duties that required a nursing license, including providing medical care, administering medication, assessing patients, executing physician orders, securing equipment and supplies and coordinating subordinate staff. She stopped working there on her own in August 2025, according to court documents.
In a fourth case, Dominguez worked one day in March 2025 at Los Arcos Del Norte Care Center and failed to show up for her new employee employment.
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