This undated booking photo provided by the Cobb County Sheriff in Marietta, Ga., shows Ernest Addo, 48, who was arrested on Aug. 24, 2012 for identity theft and practicing medicine without a license. When Addo’s friend went to Africa for a year, he assumed his buddy’s identity, all the way down to the man’s medical license. Authorities said Addo saw up to 500 patients at five senior homes in Columbia, S.C., before he was discovered.By JEFFREY COLLINS
Associated Press
COLUMBIA, S.C. – A man stole a physician’s identity and pretended to be a doctor for a year in South Carolina, and now investigators are combing through medical records to see whether he harmed any of the hundreds of patients he treated, authorities said.
Ernest Addo of Austell, Ga., is charged with unlawful practice of medicine and obtaining goods under false pretense, authorities said.
Addo doesn’t have a medical license in the U.S. But he assumed a doctor friend’s identity, getting a driver’s license and presenting the massive amount of paperwork needed to prove he was a doctor. The documents were given to him by the friend in hopes they could open a medical clinic together when the real doctor returned from a yearlong trip to Ghana, Lexington County Sheriff James Metts said.