Case Database
Filter every documented case by date, drug, state, setting, role, prosecution status, and penalty. Search accepts brand or generic drug names, facility names, and cities.
Showing 14 of 730 cases.
| Case / When | Where | Setting | Drug | Method | Role | Prosecution status | Penalty | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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Denver Hospital Case Coordinator Sentenced to 18 Months for Tampering With Patients' Oxycodone Prescriptions
2026-09-17
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Colorado Denver, Colorado |
Case management coordinator with medical-record access, hospital / in-house pharmacy (Denver, CO) | Oxycodone prescriptions belonging to ~127 patients, Dec 2023-Jul 2024 | Used patients' identifying information to pick up their prescriptions, replaced pills with ibuprofen, aspirin, acetaminophen, or loratadine | not stated | Pleaded guilty Mar 12, 2026; sentenced Sept 17, 2026 to 18 months in federal prison | none documented | source |
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Littleton Oral Surgery Assistant Sentenced for Tampering With Fentanyl Vials
2026-01-14
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Colorado Littleton, Colorado |
Surgical assistant, oral surgery practice (Littleton, CO) | Fentanyl citrate vials from the practice's controlled-substance safe | Removed fentanyl from vials and replaced contents with a substitute liquid; one tested vial was contaminated with bacteria | not stated | Pleaded guilty to tampering with a consumer product; sentenced Jan 14, 2026 to 1 year 1 day in federal prison + 2 years supervised release | none documented | source |
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Southern Colorado pharmacy paid $250,000 to resolve allegations of years of unlawful controlled-substance dispensing
2025-05
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Colorado | Independent retail pharmacy in Trinidad, Colorado | Controlled substances (not specified in release) | not stated | Pharmacy operator (corporate entity) | not stated | none documented | source |
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VA nurse pleaded guilty to stealing fentanyl, morphine and hydromorphone
2023-10
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Colorado Aurora, CO |
Denver Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Center, VA Eastern Colorado Health Care System | fentanyl, morphine and hydromorphone | stealing fentanyl, morphine and hydromorphone from the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Denver | not stated | Pleaded guilty; sentenced to 14 months in prison | none documented | source |
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Denver Paramedic Supervisor Sentenced for Stealing 1,900 Vials of Fentanyl
2023-04-19
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Colorado Denver, Colorado |
Paramedic department, Denver-area hospital (Denver, CO) | Fentanyl — ambulance narcotics kits | Stole ~1,900 vials over 4 years; falsified logs; refilled vials with saline | not stated | Sentenced Apr 19, 2023 — 3 years + 3 yrs supervised release | none documented | source |
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Colorado Nurse Sentenced Over ICU Fentanyl Drip Diversion
2022-11
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Colorado Denver, Colorado |
Sick and Intensive Care Unit, a Denver hospital | Fentanyl | On March 3, 2021, stole most of an IV fentanyl bag from a comatose, intubated patient by lowering the pump's drip rate and failing to accurately document the flow rate, then drained a second fentanyl bag into a cup and refilled the bag with saline before hospital staff interrupted him; admitted diverting fentanyl by labeling it 'waste' since late 2020 | not stated | Sentenced to five years of probation for obtaining a controlled substance by fraud and deception | none documented | source |
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Colorado Nurse Sentenced Over Fake Research-Study Hydromorphone Diversion
2021-12
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Colorado Colorado |
A Colorado hospital | Hydromorphone | Falsely told patients not assigned to her care that she was conducting a PCA-pump study, used a key to open the secured syringe, removed a portion of hydromorphone from it, and returned the syringe to the patient's PCA; obtained the drug from three patients on four occasions and fabricated a false email to law enforcement to support her cover story | not stated | Sentenced to 12 months in federal prison plus one year of supervised release for obtaining controlled substances by fraud and deception | none documented | source |
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Colorado Nurse Stole Fentanyl in Hospital Catheterization Lab
2021-09-18
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Colorado Colorado |
Catheterization lab, contract hospital placement (Colorado) | Fentanyl, midazolam, propofol | Over-obtained doses beyond procedure needs; falsified patient charts to hide the diversion | not stated | Sentenced Sep 18, 2021 to 3 months in prison | none documented | source |
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Two Colorado nurses held accountable for taking controlled substances from patients
2021-08-28
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Colorado | Patient care settings in Colorado | Controlled substances intended for patients | not stated | Nurses (two separate cases) | not stated | none documented | source |
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ICU Nurse Sentenced for Stealing Fentanyl at Parker Adventist Hospital
2019-11-13
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Colorado Parker, Colorado |
ICU, Parker Adventist Hospital (Parker, CO) | Fentanyl — dispensing-cabinet cassettes | Used the automated dispensing cabinet to access fentanyl, withdrew it with a syringe and saline flushes, sometimes reinjected saline into the cassette to conceal the theft; flagged by an April 2018 audit for high fentanyl use/waste | not stated | Pleaded guilty; sentenced Nov 13, 2019 to 44 months in federal prison | none documented | source |
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Two South Denver pharmacists pleaded guilty to felony opioid distribution charges
2018-10-17
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Colorado | Pharmacy practice in south Denver, Colorado | Opioids and other controlled substances | not stated | Two licensed pharmacists | not stated | none documented | source |
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North Colorado Medical Center Nurse Stole Opioids from Locked Dispensing System
2018-04-26
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Colorado Greeley, Colorado |
North Colorado Medical Center (Greeley, CO) | Fentanyl, morphine, hydromorphone | Theft from locked automated dispensing system; used drugs while on shift | not stated | Pleaded guilty; sentenced Apr 26, 2018 to 4 months + 1 year supervised release | none documented | source |
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Denver VA and ER Nurse Tampered with Fentanyl Vials, Resealed with Skin Glue
2018-04-19
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Colorado Denver, Colorado |
VA Medical Center and a free-standing UCHealth ER (Denver, CO) | Hydromorphone, morphine, fentanyl | Took leftover waste doses; tampered fentanyl vials refilled with saline, resealed with skin glue | not stated | Pleaded guilty; sentenced Apr 19, 2018 to 14 months + 3 years supervised release | none documented | source |
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Surgical Technician Diverts Fentanyl, Triggers Multistate Hepatitis C Outbreak — Colorado, 2010
2010-02-24
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Colorado Denver, Colorado |
Rose Medical Center (Denver, CO) and Audubon Surgery Center (Colorado Springs, CO) | Fentanyl | Stole patient-intended fentanyl syringes, self-injected, refilled syringes with saline | not stated | Sentenced to 360 months (30 years) in federal prison | $506,935 (restitution) | source |
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What each column does and doesn't cover
Every case states When (date) and Where (state) — 730 of 730. Beyond that, a blank cell means the source record does not state that fact, not that it did not happen:
- Setting: stated in 649 of 730 cases (89%)
- Drug: stated in 657 of 730 cases (90%)
- Method: stated in 474 of 730 cases (65%)
- Prosecution status: stated in 474 of 730 cases (65%); a documented penalty (fine, settlement, or restitution) exists for 77 of 730 cases (11%)
- Role: stated in only 255 of 730 cases (35%) — filtering or sorting by role silently hides the rest of the registry, which may still describe the same role in prose without a structured field
Why: documented failure modes
A separate text analysis of the 723 case summaries found 371 cases (51.3%) matching at least one named failure-mode pattern below. 352 cases (48.7% of 723) matched none of these categories - most of these are short board-order summaries ("licensee diverted controlled substances from their employer") that state an outcome without describing a mechanism, not cases where no failure occurred. A case can match zero, one, or several categories — these are corpus-level counts, not a per-case tag, and are not used as a row filter above: reproducing the exact category membership per case from the stored patterns did not exactly match this file's hand-curated counts on independent re-check, so no individual case here is labeled with a "why" that this code cannot verify.
Text names an act of replacing/refilling the drug with a named substitute (saline, water, an OTC pill, a cleaning product, etc.), OR uses swap/dilute/tamper to describe the same act, so the altered container went back into use looking unchanged.
Text uses stole/stealing/embezzled to describe removal of controlled substances.
Text uses a form of "falsif-" within 60 characters of a record-type noun (chart, inventory, transaction, receipt, prescription, etc.).
Text explicitly characterizes the prescription(s) as fraudulent, forged, invalid, or issued outside legitimate medical practice (including "pill mill" language).
Text names an automated dispensing cabinet/machine, or the acronym ADC, as part of the mechanism.
Text describes recording or claiming drug as "waste" (when it was not), pulling drug from a waste stream, or wastage that was not independently witnessed.
Text describes cancelling, voiding, or falsely entering a system transaction (an order, a return-to-stock entry, a cancel entry) specifically to conceal a removal.
Text states the FACILITY (not an individual concealing personal use) failed to maintain required inventory/records, or names a recordkeeping violation/negligent recordkeeping as the basis for the government action.
Text describes using a fictitious patient profile, a false name/identity, stolen patient information, or impersonating a licensed prescriber to obtain the drug.
Text states a failure to notify or report a loss, theft, or suspected diversion to a regulator.
Disclaimer
Case summaries are based on public records (DOJ press releases, court documents, news reports). Charges are allegations unless a conviction is noted. Analysis is educational, not legal advice.
Last reviewed: September 2026 · Content is educational, not legal advice.