Texas nurse still has license after pleading guilty to giving daughter unneeded insulin

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An East Texas nurse accused of falsely claiming her daughter had diabetes and giving her unneeded insulin pleaded guilty to charges including injury to a child and aggravated assault. But after being sentenced, she still has an active registered nursing license, which would allow her to continue working.

Ellen “Elle” Rupp-Jones, of Palestine, Texas, pleaded guilty on June 26 in an Anderson County district court to two counts of injury to a child with the intent to cause bodily injury, two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and one count of exploitation of a child, according to court records. She was sentenced to eight years of probation with deferred adjudication.

While the Texas Nursing Board has also filed formal charges against Rupp-Jones, for now she is still allowed to practice as a registered nurse, documents from the board confirm.

Some professionals say Rupp-Jones being able to continue working despite the accusations and guilty plea poses a danger, particularly to patients.

“Anybody who lies to doctors is not safe as a nurse and is a huge red flag,” said Beatrice Yorker , a professor at California State University’s Rongxiang Xu College of Health and Human Services.

“It’s almost never happened that somebody gets into recovery and admits and fully acknowledges medical child abuse and lying and falsifying,” Yorker said

According to Yorker, people who are caught medically abusing children typically deny accusations and minimize them when evidence is presented to them.

Rupp-Jones’ attorney has not responded to requests for comment. It’s unclear whether she is currently employed as a nurse.

Michael Weber, a detective with the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office , began investigating Rupp-Jones in 2019 after an endocrinologist at Cook Children’s Medical Center in Fort Worth shared concerns that he believed she gave her daughter unneeded insulin in order to present the child as hypoglycemic, or having low blood sugar.

According to an ex-husband who spoke to Weber, Rupp-Jones said several other things that he did not believe, in addition to the claims about the girl having diabetes. Those statements included Rupp-Jones falsely claiming to be an Air Force veteran and that there had been a shooting at a medical facility where she worked, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.

When asked by Weber about the things she told her ex-husband, Rupp-Jones admitted she tried to make her life more exciting, according to the affidavit.

When told by Weber that she displayed attention-seeking behavior, Rupp-Jones said, “For me maybe, but I don’t need anything for my daughter,” the warrant stated.

Yorker said that Rupp-Jones’ comments about wanting more excitement in her life are indicative of Munchausen by proxy syndrome , a condition in which a caretaker — often a mother — fakes symptoms in someone else, usually a child, to gain attention.

“The dynamic is to do this for attention and create critical incidents,” Yorker said. “It’s very, very alarming.”

Yorker said that Rupp-Jones giving her daughter unneeded injections of insulin should be grounds for revoking her license.

Allegations of medical child abuse

Rupp-Jones was first arrested on the injury to a child charge on June 6, 2019, in Anderson County on a Tarrant County warrant.

The child, then 7 years old, was removed from her mother’s care by Child Protective Services in January 2019 and went to live with her father in Tarrant County after the allegations of medical child abuse surfaced. According to an arrest warrant affidavit, her daughter ate a normal diet and authorities confirmed she did not need insulin.

The warrant alleged Rupp-Jones claimed her daughter had diabetes to gain attention. She created a fundraiser to buy a diabetes alert dog for her daughter, according to investigators. Two news stories from KLTV in East Texas were published about Rupp-Jones and her daughter — one as they raised money for the dog and another when someone donated a Labradoodle puppy to the family.

A fundraiser held at a family member’s church also raised about $4,000, which was put into a bank account purportedly to help buy a dog, but the investigation found Rupp-Jones used all the money in the account for everyday expenses.

She would take her daughter to see various doctors, claiming she had different medical problems in addition to diabetes, the warrant stated.

Rupp-Jones was arrested a second time on Nov. 6, 2019, at the Tarrant County Courthouse, where she had a consultation hearing. At that time, she was given five additional charges — two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, two counts of injury to a child and one count of exploitation of a child.

The deadly weapon charge stemmed from the insulin Rupp-Jones injected her daughter with, authorities said. Giving unneeded insulin to a person can cause them to go into a coma or even die .

Revoking Rupp-Jones’ nursing license

Much like Yorker, Weber says Rupp-Jones working as a nurse would threaten the safety of patients.

“This offender is still allowed to be a nurse in multiple states,” Weber wrote in a statement posted on social media . “Without any children to perpetrate against, she could most certainly perp on her patients.”

He said that the Anderson County District Attorney’s Office failed to prosecute her in order to immediately revoke her license.

The Anderson County DA’s Office did not respond to the Star-Telegram’s request for comment.

But the deputy general counsel for the Texas Board of Nursing, John Vanderford, told the Star-Telegram that the board is currently in the process of revoking Rupp-Jones’ license.

Her license could not immediately be revoked at the time she was charged because the board is not permitted, by law, to act on an arrest alone, but is required to follow due process requirements, according to Vanderford.

Chapter 53 of the Occupations Code allows revocation by operation of law if a nurse is incarcerated following a plea of guilty to a felony, Vanderford said. But because Rupp-Jones was sentenced without incarceration, the board was unable to consider her nursing license revoked.

The formal charges filed by the board have been pending since July 16, 2019, according to Vanderford.

The board was legally required to set Rupp-Jones’ case at the State Office of Administrative Hearings for an evidentiary hearing. The board filed a motion for summary disposition based on Rupp-Jones’ guilty plea. The motion was granted and resulted in a proposal for a decision from the State Office of Administrative Hearings recommending that the board revoke her nursing license.

The revocation of her license will take effect when the board adopts a final order including the recommendation from the administrative law judge, according to Vanderford. The board will consider the order at a hearing scheduled for April 18.

At the hearing, the board will submit an order that revokes Rupp-Jones’ license, as required by law, Vanderford said. Then she will not be eligible to re-apply for a nursing license until five years after her release from a 10-year period of community supervision, he said.

In the meantime, a search of the nursing board’s online database shows Rupp-Jones’ license is active but includes a note that formal charges have been filed against her.