Dozens of criminal RNs identified by California regulators

Dozens of registered nurses who have been convicted of serious crimes including murder, sex offenses, robbery and assault have been identified by California regulators reviewing newly required fingerprints from tens of thousands of caregivers. The state Board of Registered Nursing expanded its review of nurses' criminal records after an October 2008 story by The Times and the nonprofit news organization ProPublica found that regulators often didn't know about nurses' convictions and didn't act quickly once they learned of them.

At the time, nurses who had received licenses before 1990 were exempt from providing fingerprints, which are used to flag arrests for regulators. Since March, the board has required those nurses to submit their fingerprints. Most of the crimes turned up are misdemeanors, such as driving under the influence, petty theft or fraud. But the records as of November also included two murders, two solicitations for murder, an attempted murder, a manslaughter and a vehicular homicide. There also were 19 convictions for assault, including five felonies, and 39 for sex offenses, three of them felonies.