Phony Fla. healthcare worker sent to jail

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KISSIMMEE, Fla., Nov. 15 (UPI) -- A Florida teenager was sentenced to a year in jail for impersonating a physician's assistant in a hospital emergency room.

The sentence for Matthew Scheidt, 18, Wednesday in Osceola County Court includes a year of house arrest and eight years of probation following his release from jail, court documents showed.

Scheidt was convicted in August of two felony counts of practicing medicine without a license and two felony counts of impersonating a physician's assistant at Osceola Regional Medical Center in Kissimmee in 2011, after he, a doctor's office clerk, was incorrectly listed in hospital computers.

Prosecutors at Scheidt's trial said he used his hospital badge, identifying him and his incorrect position, to work in the emergency room for weeks, changing bandages, handling intravenous fluids and helping to conduct physical examinations.

He was arrested initially in September 2011 and returned to police custody in January 2012 for impersonating a police officer, CNN reported.