A felon masqueraded as an East Tennessee nurse for years. Now, she's pleaded guilty to fraud.

A convicted felon who stole other women's identities to pose as a registered nurse worked for years at a slew of East Tennessee institutions, where she falsified records, administered medications and performed procedures without any medical training or experience, federal court records show.

Misty Dawn Bacon, 44, of Morristown, pleaded guilty Wednesday to charges of wire fraud, health care fraud and identity theft in U.S. District Court in Greeneville, prosecutors announced in a news release. She could face up to 45 years in prison.

gavel and money

While masquerading as a nurse, Bacon worked for nursing homes, assisted living facilities, a gynecologist's office and as an in-home nurse for shut-in patients, according to her plea agreement. She fraudulently collected more than $200,000 in pay during the scheme, which ran from at least 2012 until September of last year.

Bacon, who was convicted in 2003 of charges she stole from a bank where she worked, told Tennessee Bureau of Investigation agents she hatched her plan after she searched her first and middle name on the state health department's website and found a woman who had a current license to be a registered nurse in Tennessee.

Bacon went on to use the partial names and license numbers of two registered nurses to score jobs at eight health care providers over the six-year span. She repeatedly lied to employers, saying she had never been convicted of a felony, that she had a nursing license and that she held a nursing degree from Walters State Community College.

In the plea agreement, prosecutors detailed several instances in which Bacon's lack of expertise hurt the people she treated. In 2013, for example, she visited a Morristown patient's home and administered 10 times the prescribed amount of insulin. As a result, the patient had to be hospitalized for three days.

In 2014, Bacon falsified medical records by recording patients' blood sugar levels when she never checked those levels, the agreement states. In 2018, she didn't properly document a patient's wounds, leading to incorrect care, and also failed to update a patient's medication list.

According to court records, Bacon worked for Interim Health Care in Morristown, Jefferson City Health and Rehabilitation Center, Beverly Park Place in Knoxville, Five Rivers OBGYN in Morristown, Camellia Home Health, Suncrest Home Health, Life Care of Jefferson City and Amedisys.

Amedisys fired Bacon in November 2018 after confirming an anonymous tip that she was not a licensed nurse. Authorities began questioning her in January.

In addition to decades in prison, Bacon could face fines up to $750,000 and restitution that could exceed that figure. She is scheduled to be sentenced on April 3 in U.S. District Court in Greeneville.