Teen Pretending To Be Doctor Pleads Guilty, Given 3.5 Years In Prison

A Florida man who masqueraded as a doctor when he was a teen pleaded guilty Thursday to several charges including practicing medicine without a license and theft.

Twenty-year-old Malachi Love-Robinson from West Palm Beach was sentenced to 3.5 years in prison with a credit of 16 months already served.

Love-Robinson, who was facing a total of 14 criminal charges, was also charged of stealing more than $35,000 from an elderly Palm Beach County patient, who he was allegedly treating in 2015. He was also charged for forgery.

Apart from being sentenced to jail, he has also been ordered to pay restitution of $80,000 to his victims, reported the Sun Sentinel.

Love-Robinson was first accused of being a fake doctor three years ago, when a West Palm Beach police report said he peeked in on at least one gynecological exam at St. Mary’s Medical Center. When he was caught, he said the allegations left him “deeply saddened and a little disrespected.”

According to a report in the Sun Sentinel, in 2015, Love-Robinson had started a clinic in Boynton Beach but had to shut it down after Department of Health, Florida, issued a cease-and-desist order as he did not possess a medical license.

Though Love-Robinson tried to present himself as a licensed physician, he was caught after he examined an undercover Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office deputy, who went to him complaining sickness in Feb. 2016 at New Birth New Life Medical Center in West Palm Beach. The other employees at his office were also working without license, the Miami Herald reported

The Sun Sentinel also reported that in 2016, when Love-Robinson was 19 years old, he was arrested after he was found practicing medicine without a license.

He was also accused of stealing more than $35,000 from a patient. Love-Robinson stole the money from 86-year-old Anita Morrison, whose house he had been visiting regularly apparently treating for her abdominal pains. He tapped Morrison’s checking account to make $34,504 in payments for his Nissan car loans and credit cards.

According to a report in the Miami Herald, a police officer in Love-Robinson’s arrest report wrote, “Love-Robinson has a history of presenting himself as a medical doctor and was previously Baker Acted by the city of West Palm Beach Police Department.”

He had claimed that he held degrees from Arizona State University and Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine & Health Sciences, both in Tempe, Arizona but no records of his enrolment was found, according to an investigation by the Florida Department of Health.

Love-Robinson admitted in front of the state investigators during an interview that he had presented a false diploma degree document from Arizona State University at the clinic at Boynton Beach.

However, Love-Robinson’s grandparents felt that their grandson was doing good to help people and had no intentions of harming anyone.

His grandfather William McKenzie told NBC News, “He was always trying to help people. He just made some wrong choices.”

Grandmother Rebecca McKenzie said, “What he was trying to do, he was trying to do for the better good and not harm anybody.” She added, “I think he’s going to be alright in the long run.”