Another fake doctor incident.
Queensland-based 'Spiritual insights coach' and COVID denialist Maria Carmela Pau (aka Maria Power) has been fined $25,000 in Southport Magistrates Court, with no conviction recorded, after pleading guilty to posing as doctor and issuing false COVID exemption certificates.
She is variously reported as having made $90, 000 or 1$20,000 issuing false COVID-19 exemptions as a purported doctor.
Pau was charged with multiple counts of taking a title, name, word or description to indicate she was a health practitioner. When arrested in October last year at a Labrador (Gold Coast) address police located hundreds of the false certificates. She had been dobbed in 'by a concerned member of the public'.
Pau is not registered with AHPRA, has not met the formal requirements for practice as a general practitioner and does not have a doctorate in medicine.
Her lawyer argued that Pau believed she had the power to grant the exemption certificates and was deeply distressed after being charged. The prosecution however argued that she had shown no remorse, remained defiant and had urged people to 'end tyranny' of mandatory restrictions.
