Official: Bobbi Kristina nurse unlicensed at Maryland jobs
In this Feb. 12, 2011, file photo, singer Whitney Houston, left, and daughter Bobbi Kristina Brown arrive at an event in Beverly Hills, California. Brown, who was in hospice after months of receiving medical care, died on Sunday, July 26, 2015. AP FILE PHOTO
ATLANTA — The woman arrested on charges she posed as a nurse while caring for Bobbi Kristina Brown at a Georgia hospice facility was investigated last year in Maryland for allegedly working as an unlicensed nurse at four facilities there.
Taiwo Sobamowo used another person’s name and license number to obtain the jobs between 2010 and 2013, Maryland Board of Nursing executive director Mary Kay Goetter told The Associated Press on Friday. Goetter said the board began investigating in January 2014 after the District of Columbia Board of Nursing issued a warning that Sobamowo had impersonated a nurse to work at a hospice facility in Washington.
Brown, the 22-year-old daughter of singers Bobby Brown and the late Whitney Houston, died July 26 at Peachtree Christian Hospice in Duluth, Georgia, after she was found unresponsive in a bathtub.
A police report shows no indication that Brown’s care was affected by Sobamowo.
READ: Family feud in evidence at Bobbi Kristina funeral | Bobbi Kristina Brown, daughter of Whitney Houston, has died
Sobamowo was arrested Sunday in Raleigh, North Carolina, and transferred to Georgia. She appeared in court and bond was set at $2,240 for felony charges of financial identity fraud and forgery and $25,000 for practicing nursing without a license.
It wasn’t clear on Thursday if she has an attorney.
Goetter said Sobamowo used the name and valid license number of a man whose first name also is Taiwo. None of her former employers in Maryland reported any concerns about Sobamomo to the board, she said.
“We only knew about it because Washington, D.C., reported it to us,” she said. “It’s mind-boggling to me that somebody would be able to get away with, over and over again, pretending you’re a nurse when you’re not.”
Goetter said Sobamowo had resigned from one of the facilities amid concerns about “timely documentation” and was fired from another after the license number she was using expired and wasn’t renewed.
“There’s no indication that anyone thought she was an impostor,” she added.
Montgomery Hospice, based in Rockville, Maryland, was one of Sobamowo’s former employers. Susan Burket, a spokeswoman for the facility, said it didn’t suspect that Sobamowo was caring for patients without a license.
“We were quite surprised to have that visit from the board of nursing,” she said.
Goetter said her board referred the matter to the state attorney general’s office. It wasn’t immediately clear if the attorney general’s office took any action.
In Georgia, Sobamowo was hired by Homestead Hospice in September 2014 and fired Aug. 5 when she couldn’t provide proof of a license, according to the Georgia Board of Nursing. Sobamowo also used the license numbers of actual nurses to secure jobs in Georgia and Washington, according to state nursing boards and police.
