Man Fakes Positive COVID-19 Test To Skip Court Date

A 31-year-old Connecticut man was able to skip a court date after he sent a judge a fake positive COVID-19 test result, investigators said.

Junior Jumpp was arrested Tuesday after he sent New Britain Superior Court Judge Maureen Keegan an altered coronavirus test result on Nov. 29 — a day before Jumpp's scheduled bond revocation hearing, Smoking Gun reported, citing an arrest warrant application.

The Hartford resident had been ordered to appear in court as he was arrested on Nov. 26 for interfering with an officer and second-degree breach of peace despite being out on bond "for a number of pending criminal cases," according to the document written by inspector Steven Sartor from the Connecticut Division of Criminal Justice of the Office of the Chief State's Attorney.

Jumpp was able to secure a $10,000 surety bond following the Nov. 26 arrest and later that day appeared in Manchester Superior Court, where he was ordered to appear before Keegan on the morning of Nov. 30 for the alleged violation of his previous release terms.

Jumpp, through his legal counsel, told the magistrate that he had tested positive for COVID-19 a day prior to the scheduled hearing and submitted a photograph of the alleged notification from Saint Francis Hospital in Hartford via email.

"Dear Junior Jumpp, Your COVID test is positive. [The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] recommends you isolate for 10 days from the start of symptoms or the date you tested positive," read the MyCare Messaging User notification, which had "Nov. 27, 7:09 a.m." displayed as the time and date.

Keegan excused Jumpp from attending the Nov. 30 hearing following the submission of the result, but his defense counsel was still present at court on that day.

However, inspector Sartor later noticed that the numerical day in the date displayed on Jumpp's photo "was a different letter size and theme font than the rest of the message."

"These types of notification messages do not randomly change their message letter size and theme font. The change in letter size and theme font of the numerical day demonstrates that the original message had been altered," Sartor explained.

Sartor, acting on his suspicions, emailed a scanned copy of Jumpp's COVID-19 test notification to Trinity Health of New England's MyCare technical support group. A representative later contacted the inspector and confirmed that Jumpp's image was altered.

Further investigation revealed that neither Trinity Health of New England nor Saint Francis Hospital had medical records for Jumpp regarding his positive coronavirus diagnosis, treatment or testing.

Jumpp, who allegedly fabricated the result to skip his bond revocation hearing, was arrested on felony charges of forgery and tampering with evidence. He was booked into the county jail on $25,000 bond.

Jumpp is scheduled to appear in court on Feb. 3.

The U.S. has reported more than 55.1 million COVID-19 cases and 826,000 deaths as of Sunday, according to data provided by Johns Hopkins University.