MINEOLA, N.Y. — A plea deal was made Friday in a covid-19 vaccine case on Long Island that drew national attention. Biology teacher Laura Parker Russo, who injected a 17-year-old friend of her son with a purported Johnson & Johnson covid vaccine last New Year’s Eve, left court without comment after moving to resolve her felony case by pleading guilty to lesser charges.
“I think they should have kept it as a misdemeanor. I don’t think what she did was a walk in the park,” said Lisa Doyle, the teenager’s mother. Doyle reiterated what she first told CBS2 last May — that there should be greater repercussions for the highly educated Sea Cliff mother, who was a teacher at Herricks High School. “I’m glad that the judge realized that he needed to be tougher on her than the DA was,” Doyle said.
The judge threw out the initial agreement and tacked on 100 hours of community service and therapy twice a week for a year when Russo pled guilty to attempted unauthorized practice of medicine and disorderly conduct in order to receive a conditional discharge and no prison time. “As long as she’s successful in what the judge laid out that she has to do, she will have a non-criminal disposition. She will be getting a violation at the end,” Russo’s defense attorney, Gerard McCloskey, said.