Petaluma COVID-19 testing site deemed ‘suspicious’

Nancy Arata went through radiation and chemotherapy last year, and it had been a long time since she had gotten tested for COVID-19.

So, on Jan. 14, when she drove by the Petaluma Community Center in Lucchesi Park and noticed a pop-up testing site, she decided to stop.

“There were only like two people ahead of me, and I thought, ‘Wow this is great,’” the 71-year-old Arata said. “I didn’t look to see if it was legit. I just assumed it was...And then I didn’t hear from them again.”

She didn’t have contact information for the operation, and when she returned to the site, it was gone.

When Arata saw last week’s “In Your Corner” column about California’s attorney general warning about illegitimate COVID-19 testing operations, she began to worry and contacted me. She also said she reported her experience to the Petaluma Police Department.

Soon after I heard from Arata, another reader reached out with concerns about the same site.

A few weeks ago, the 78-year-old woman’s housemate had tested positive for COVID-19. She and her husband, 81, needed to find out as soon as possible whether they’d been infected, but they couldn’t get a test appointment anywhere.

“We just could not find anything. The first one we could find through Kaiser, which is our health provider, was two weeks away,” the woman told me.

When she saw the pop-up site by Lucchesi Park, something felt off, she said. But, she was desperate.

“Instinctively, I thought this does not look right, but I felt out of options,” she said of her Jan. 18 visit.

“As I was filling out the form, I was thinking, ‘This is a lot of information to give to people I’m not sure I trust,’ but I just went ahead and did it because I was already there.”

To be safe, she asked to see the testing site’s license, which they showed her, and she took a picture. Still, she never heard back about her results.

In the picture, which the reader shared with me, the laboratory license for a Crestview Clinical Laboratory, LLC, looks legitimate. The lab’s state ID and federal Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA) license number check out, for instance.

Some information, like the owner’s name listed, however, didn’t seem to quite match up. Repeated calls to the number listed on the lab’s website led to a voice recording with no ability to leave a message.

Eventually, though, I was able to reach a lab representative by email who denied the lab had a connection to the site.

“Crestview Clinical Lab does not own and operate any specimens collection site for COVID testing,” Justin Nguyen wrote. “Anyone who claims to be representing Crestview Clinical Laboratory at a COVID test site is lying and is using false documents they have fabricated or obtained from the internet without our approval.”

After reviewing the picture of the site’s supposed license, Nguyen confirmed that, among other issues, “the owner's name on the State License is wrong.”

Wednesday afternoon, the Petaluma Police Department released an advisory about the pop-up testing site at 320 North McDowell Blvd. in Petaluma based on several citizen reports and an officer's own conversation with the lab.

“Based upon Crestview Clinical Laboratory advising they did not authorize the use of their license at this location, it has been deemed a suspicious testing site, and further investigations are being conducted,” the news release said.

The site no longer appears to be operating in Petaluma, police added.

While people did not pay for tests at the site, they did provide personal data. Readers who reached out to me said they provided their contact details, birth dates, or insurance, and they’re worried about identity theft.

“I am more concerned about that than I was about getting COVID” the woman seeking a test after being exposed to the virus told me.

According to Sgt. Patrick Gerke, no one has yet reported being a victim of fraud as a result of visiting the testing operation and that at least one person reported getting results from the site.

“We’re not sure if there was fraudulent behavior or if there’s something else going on behind the scenes we don’t know, but we’re continuing to look into it,” Gerke said.

He advised anyone who visited the site to contact the department at 707-778-4372, and in the meantime, to monitor their credit.

Crestview Clinical Lab is currently under scrutiny in San Francisco in connection with a COVID-19 testing operation, Community Wellness America, which has been accused of running unpermitted sites in Marin County and elsewhere.

On Jan. 20, City Attorney David Chiu announced he had issued two subpoenas for records from both companies “as a part of an investigation into rogue COVID testing operators in San Francisco.”

According to an NBC Bay Area investigation, the companies have received more than $90 million in government funding to perform and process COVID tests. (The San Francisco City Attorney’s office did not return an “In Your Corner” request for comment.)

Crestview Clinical Lab has distanced itself from Community Wellness America, and, like in Petaluma, a spokesperson told the San Francisco Chronicle that a suspicious testing site in the city’s Golden Gate Park “must have used our license without our approval.”

While legitimate test sites are still the norm, a rise in rogue, mismanaged or fraudulent COVID-19 testing operations proliferating during this winter’s surge has triggered consumer warnings, official investigations and lawsuits nationwide.

As the situation in Petaluma shows, suspicious operations can be hard to spot, especially when testing availability is scarce or sites furnish credentials.

In fact, police initially called to the Petaluma pop-up at first deemed the paperwork provided to be in order.

On Tuesday, at the weekly Petaluma East Side Farmers’ Market located right next to where the COVID-19 testing pop-up had been, I spoke with Kelly Smith, the market’s executive director.

The site’s “shabby tent” and “shabby signage” and the fact that the operation was set up so close to the market and by a bus stop seemed off to Smith.

“I felt like it was a red flag,” she told me.

Smith said that quite a few people visited the site, with a line stretching four or five deep at some point in the day. She and her colleague spoke with authorities and took pictures of the setup and of the site’s contact information which they later shared with Arata.

(Calls to the number pictured lead to a recording of a woman’s voice over a loud pop beat, thanking callers for ringing the “hotline” and instructing them to leave a message.)

While the investigation into the Petaluma site is ongoing, the ordeal has caused Arata much stress. “I have a lot of other stuff going on, and I don’t need this,” she said. “I’m trying to just hope that everything is okay.”

To be safe, experts say to use COVID-19 testing sites designated by your health care provider or your county. (You can find a list at covid19.ca.gov/get-local-information/#County-websites.)

If you think you might have visited an unlawful testing site, contact local law enforcement, and file a report with the California Attorney General’s office online at oag.ca.gov/report.

“In Your Corner” is a new column that puts watchdog reporting to work for the community. If you have a concern, a tip, or a hunch, you can reach “In Your Corner” Columnist Marisa Endicott at 707-521-5470 or marisa.endicott@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @InYourCornerTPD and Facebook @InYourCornerTPD.