The woman, identified as Christine Nyambura Muturi, also known as Christine Lewis, is said to have used forged credentials to secure work in two different facilities before investigators uncovered her alleged scheme.
According to documents filed in Arizona, Nyambura was first hired in August by Northern Arizona Hospice (NAZ) in Cottonwood.
She reportedly presented herself as a fully trained and certified registered nurse, complete with what looked like a valid nursing licence from the state of Colorado.
Her application also contained a background story describing her as an experienced triage nurse who supposedly worked in a Las Vegas hospital from 2019 to 2022.
Her résumé painted a picture of a caring and highly skilled professional, and for a short while, nothing seemed suspicious.
Nyambura was paired with other nurses for orientation and, at one point, even visited a patient alone on August 15 as part of her duties.
The truth started to come out when administrators at NAZ decided to verify her documents more thoroughly.
During the review, they discovered a strange detail: the licence number she had submitted belonged to a real registered nurse, but it had been issued several years before Nyambura was even born.
The real owner of the licence, a woman nearly 30 years older, confirmed to investigators that she had never met Nyambura and had not given anyone permission to use her information.
This raised immediate red flags, and when Nyambura was confronted by her employers, she resigned abruptly.
The sudden resignation created even more suspicion. Soon after, NAZ officials learnt that Nyambura had already secured another job as a nurse at Golden Rose Hospice in Mesa.
The two facilities reported the matter to authorities, prompting a deeper investigation.
Detectives from the Arizona Attorney General’s Office found that Nyambura had never held a nursing licence in any US state, despite claiming otherwise.
On November 13, an undercover agent met her while pretending to be an investor planning to open a new hospice centre. During their conversation, Nyambura again claimed she was a fully licensed nurse—something investigators say helped them conclude that she was still actively misrepresenting herself.
She was arrested at her home near Crismon Road and Ray Road in Mesa. After her arrest, the court denied her bail, citing her previous criminal record, which includes domestic battery charges in Las Vegas and a fugitive-from-justice case in Los Angeles.
Authorities are now working to determine whether any patients were put at risk during the period she worked in the two hospice facilities.
Although she had only performed limited duties, investigators say the risk to vulnerable patients was significant because they relied on someone they believed to be a trained medical professional.
Nyambura had previously drawn public attention for her extravagant lifestyle.
In an earlier story, she reportedly spent more than KSh 8 million on her daughter’s first birthday, flying in Tanzanian musician Harmonize to perform for her guests.
She said she wanted to make the celebration special because her daughter had been born prematurely.
