{"id":6470,"date":"2025-07-13T10:42:06","date_gmt":"2025-07-13T10:42:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/6470\/"},"modified":"2025-07-13T10:42:06","modified_gmt":"2025-07-13T10:42:06","slug":"charges-dropped-against-doctor-accused-of-dumping-28000-in-covid-vaccine-doses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/6470\/","title":{"rendered":"Charges dropped against doctor accused of dumping $28,000 in COVID vaccine doses"},"content":{"rendered":"

The federal government on Saturday dismissed charges against a Utah plastic surgeon accused of throwing away COVID-19 vaccines<\/a>, giving children saline shots instead of the vaccine and selling faked vaccination cards.<\/p>\n

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi<\/a> said in a post on the social media platform X that charges against Dr. Michael Kirk Moore, of Midvale, Utah, were dismissed at her direction. <\/p>\n

Moore and other defendants faced up to 35 years in prison after being charged with conspiracy to defraud the government; conspiracy to convert, sell, convey and dispose of government property; and aiding and abetting in those efforts. The charges were brought when Joe Biden<\/a> was president.<\/p>\n

\u201cDr. Moore gave his patients a choice when the federal government refused to do so,\u201d Bondi wrote. \u201cHe did not deserve the years in prison he was facing. It ends today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Felice John Viti, acting U.S. attorney for Utah, filed the motion Saturday, saying \u201csuch dismissal is in the interests of justice.\u201d<\/p>\n

The trial began Monday in Salt Lake City with jury selection. It was expected to last 15 days.<\/p>\n

Messages sent to the U.S. Department of Justice, Viti\u2019s office in Salt Lake City and to Moore were not immediately returned Saturday to The Associated Press.<\/p>\n

A federal grand jury on Jan. 11, 2023, returned an indictment against Moore, his Plastic Surgery Institute of Utah Inc., others associated with the clinic and a neighbor of Moore’s. The indictment alleged more than $28,000 of government-provided COVID-19 vaccine doses were destroyed.<\/p>\n

They were also accused of providing fraudulently completed vaccination record cards for over 1,900 doses of the vaccine in exchange for either a cash or a donation to a specified charitable organization. <\/p>\n

The government also alleged some children were given saline shots, at their parents\u2019 request, so the minors believed they were getting the vaccine.<\/p>\n

Health Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr.,<\/a> a leading anti-vaccine activist before becoming the nation\u2019s top health official, posted his support for Moore in April, saying on X that Moore “deserves a medal for his courage and his commitment to healing!\u201d<\/p>\n

During his confirmation hearings in January, Kennedy repeatedly refused to acknowledge scientific consensus<\/a> that childhood vaccines<\/a> don\u2019t cause autism and that COVID-19 vaccines<\/a> saved millions of lives.<\/p>\n

In a follow-up X post on Saturday, Bondi said Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene brought the case to her attention.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Thiessen reported from Anchorage, Alaska.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The federal government on Saturday dismissed charges against a Utah plastic surgeon accused of throwing away COVID-19 vaccines,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6471,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[6885,23,966,151,6883,6884,793,97,6882,3073,243,3,111,795,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":{"0":"post-6470","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-6885","9":"tag-america","10":"tag-article","11":"tag-children","12":"tag-coronavirus","13":"tag-fraud","14":"tag-general-news","15":"tag-health","16":"tag-immunizations","17":"tag-indictments","18":"tag-medication","19":"tag-news","20":"tag-politics","21":"tag-u-s-news","22":"tag-united-states","23":"tag-united-states-of-america","24":"tag-unitedstates","25":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","26":"tag-us","27":"tag-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6470"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6470\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}