Nipomo woman forged documents for immigrants, pleads guilty

May 5, 2025

By KAREN VELIE

A 54-year-old Nipomo woman pleaded guilty today to forging hundreds of fraudulent documents to help immigrants meet requirements for green cards or to adjust their immigration status and for using a deceased doctor’s credentials to acquire and distribute controlled substances.

Chantelle Lavergne Woods faces a statutory maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison. Woods is free on $10,000 bond.

Woods formerly operated and managed a clinic in Arroyo Grande that at times was known as “Medical Weight Loss and Immigration Services.” Beginning in Feb. 2021, Woods misused the identities of three physicians to create hundreds of fraudulent documents pertaining to medical examinations of individuals seeking to register for a lawful permanent resident card – commonly known as a “green card” – or otherwise adjust their immigration status.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services requires a medical examination and vaccination record to determine an applicant’s legal status. Federal law requires licensed physicians – or “civil surgeons” – perform these examinations.

Woods also admitted that – from Feb. 2021 to June 2022 – she used the Drug Enforcement Administration registration number of a deceased physician to order more than 150,000 tablets of controlled substances, including testosterone, codeine, alprazolam (sold under the brand name Xanax), diethylpropion (an appetite suppressant), and phentermine (weight-loss medicine).

Woods then knowingly and intentionally possessed with intent to distribute phendimetrazine – a weight-loss drug – as well as a loaded firearm.