Utah
Utah man gets prison time for selling 120,000 fake COVID-19 vaccine cards • Utah News Dispatch
A Utah man was sentenced to prison on Thursday for selling thousands of fake COVID-19 vaccination cards.
A federal judge sentenced 34-year-old Nicholas Frank Sciotto to 12 months for selling at least 120,000 counterfeit COVID-19 vaccination record cards after he admitted in July to conspiring to defraud the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Sciotto made more than $400,000 in profit.
He was also sentenced to three years supervised release and ordered to pay a $40,000 fine.
Prosecutors say Sciotto lived in Weber County when he started making the cards in March 2021, conspiring with another man, Kyle Blake Burbage. According to a complaint filed in federal court in March 2023, the cards “looked identical to bonafide COVID-19 vaccination record cards which were issued by the CDC at the time.”
“I know someone selling legit vacc (sic) cards cheap for people who don’t want to partake in a science experiment,” Sciotto wrote in a Facebook comment in March 2021.
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Sciotto printed the cards at a local print shop in Utah, the complaint alleges, convincing the store’s owner that he worked for a local hospital and was authorized to “print out thousands of copies of COVID-19 vaccination record cards.”
Sciotto charged $10 for each card, plus shipping, with a discounted price of $7.50 for anyone who ordered 100 or more. He sold “many” of the cards to people living in New York City “to facilitate their evasion of local health and safety protocols,” according to the complaint. Most of the transactions were done via Venmo or Cashapp, and Sciotto advertised the cards on Facebook. Sciotto tried to keep a low profile by changing the shipping addresses and envelopes every week when he made the shipments.
Some of those cards were then resold, with a market value hovering between $50 to $100 per card, according to the complaint.
“Sciotto engaged in this scheme – without regard for any public health consequences or risks that he exposed individuals to during the pandemic, without their knowledge or consent, and he undermined the CDC’s COVID-19 vaccination program and other governmental health and safety regulations and protocols at significant profit,” reads a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Utah.
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Utah
Here’s who will lead Utah Valley University as its next president
Jon Anderson will be charged with moving the Orem school forward following the death of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk on campus last year.
(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) Incoming UVU President Jon Anderson poses for a photo with his family after an event announcing his selection at Utah Valley University in Orem on Friday, July 17, 2026.
Utah
Beaver County residents set up thousands of sandbags ahead of flashfloods
BEAVER COUNTY, Utah — A massive community effort is underway as volunteers and Beaver County crews distribute thousands of sandbags to protect homes from the potential path of floodwaters.
After the Cottonwood Fires, residents have been waiting for weeks for relief to come in the form of rain, though officials now warn it may come all at once with an increased risk of flooding and debris flow.
Emergency Service Director Les Whitney believes that the fire has left plenty of debris to bring trouble for residents.
“We got a lot of water. We’re bringing debris with it, so tree branches, tree limbs, logs, lots of different size firewood, and that’s all in the creeks. We’re worried about that plugging up our bridges and stuff, so we have heavy equipment and excavators located in strategic places so that we can keep those bridges open,” said Whitney.
An estimated 140 homes and condominiums were spared from the flames, but remain in the paths of floodwaters.
Residents can also pick up sandbags at the Beaver County Sheriff’s Office or at the Beaver County Rodeo Fairgrounds.
Utah
Utah man arrested again for allegedly abusing dog twice in three months
EAGLE MOUNTAIN — An Eagle Mountain man currently on pretrial release in 4th District Court who is accused of abusing his dog has been arrested again for allegedly punching the same animal.
Keith Reaves Davis, 43, was booked into the Utah County Jail on Wednesday for investigation of aggravated cruelty to an animal.
Utah County sheriff’s deputies were called Wednesday afternoon to a grocery store on a report that a man was beating his dog after it had gotten off its leash and was stopped by a bystander, according to a police booking affidavit.
“I reviewed security camera footage from the grocery store, and an individual matching the description of the suspect was seen holding the dog in the air by one paw and repeatedly striking the dog on the right hind leg area. I observed the male strike the dog several times before dropping the dog from approximately 1-2 feet. The strikes appeared to be as hard as the male could hit,” the arresting deputy wrote in the affidavit. “The dog did not cry out or whimper as if the dog was accustomed to the abuse.”
When questioned, Davis “admitted to striking the dog because it was not behaving,” the affidavit states.
An animal control officer who responded to the scene to take custody of the dog noted it was the same dog he had taken from Davis exactly three months earlier during another animal abuse investigation.
In that case, Davis was charged in 4th District Court with aggravated cruelty to an animal, a class A misdemeanor; and public intoxication, a class C misdemeanor, after deputies received a tip from a neighbor that a dog was being abused at Davis’ home, according to charging documents. When questioned, Davis “acknowledged hitting his dog as punishment,” the charges state.
Deputies also reviewed videos that the neighbor had filmed. The neighbor told investigators “there was blood from the dog on the ground of the garage and (the neighbor) can hear the dog screaming as if it’s being hurt. Deputies got the videos from the (neighbor) and you can hear very loudly the dog screaming and crying with a lot of loud banging noises. In one of the videos, you can hear the dog sounding like it is being choked by a collar and is grasping for air,” a police booking affidavit states.
Davis’ next court hearing in the April case is scheduled for July 28.
In their latest booking report, sheriff’s deputies note that they “believe further harm will be inflicted on this dog if it is released back to the male a second time,” and have recommended the dog not be returned to Davis.
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.
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