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 18 of 730 cases.
| Case / When | Where | Setting | Drug | Method | Role | Prosecution status | Penalty | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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Florida Pharmacist Sentenced to Over 7 Years in Prison for Massive Illegal Oxycodone Distribution Conspiracy
2026-10-30
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Florida Margate and Pembroke Pines, Florida |
Two pharmacies she owned and operated, in Margate and Pembroke Pines, Florida | Oxycodone 30mg, the maximum available strength; at least 335,351 pills dispensed during the conspiracy | Dispensed oxycodone to nearly all customers with no medical need, charged about 10 times the typical cost in cash only, released pills to dealers picking up for dozens of absent patients, and kept the doors locked during business hours, admitting only identified customers | not stated | Convicted by a jury after a two-week trial in July 2026 of conspiracy to illegally distribute drugs and five counts of illegal drug distribution; sentenced to 90 months in prison; co-defendant pleaded guilty to conspiracy and awaits sentencing | none documented | source |
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Emergency Department Physician Pleads Guilty to 19 Counts of Illegally Prescribing Opioids and Stimulants
2026-10-21
|
Florida Pensacola, Florida |
Hospital emergency departments and other medical offices in and around Escambia County, Florida; prescriptions written 2020-2025 and filled at pharmacies in Escambia and Santa Rosa Counties | Over 22,000 opioid pills (primarily oxycodone and hydrocodone) and over 3,000 stimulant pills (primarily Adderall or generic equivalents), at least 25,500 controlled-substance pills in total | Wrote, signed and distributed prescriptions with no determination of a legitimate medical purpose, no physical examination, no review of prior medical and prescribing records and no record of the encounter, in whatever drug, strength and quantity the requester asked for | not stated | Pleaded guilty Oct. 21, 2026 to 19 counts of unlawfully distributing or dispensing controlled substances; sentencing set for Jan. 14, 2027, up to 20 years' imprisonment per count | none documented | source |
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Fort Walton Beach Gastroenterologist Pays $300,000 to Settle Controlled Substances Act Prescribing Allegations
2026-09-21
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Florida Fort Walton Beach, Florida |
Gastroenterology practice, Fort Walton Beach, FL | Oxycodone-acetaminophen, hydrocodone-acetaminophen, lorazepam, alprazolam, clonazepam, and tramadol | Unlawfully prescribed at least 127 controlled-substance prescriptions from Jun 2023 to Mar 2025 while maintaining no patient records | not stated | Civil settlement: $300,000, agreed not to reapply for a Schedule II/IIN DEA registration, additional DEA monitoring, announced Sep 21, 2026 | $300,000 (civil settlement) | source |
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Orlando pharmacy and pharmacist settle Controlled Substances Act allegations over Schedule V distribution and recordkeeping
2026-07
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Florida | Retail pharmacy, Orlando | Schedule V controlled substances | not stated | Pharmacy and its pharmacist | not stated | none documented | source |
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Tampa Bay Nurse Sentenced to Two Years for Tampering with and Stealing Injectable Opioids
2026-06-11
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Florida Tampa, Florida |
RN, Tampa Bay area hospital | Morphine, hydromorphone, fentanyl (injectable) | Between Nov 2023 and Mar 2024, removed the drugs from their containers, replaced them with saline, and returned the containers to circulation for other patients while using the diverted drugs herself | not stated | Pleaded guilty Aug 6, 2025 to tampering with a consumer product; sentenced Jun 11, 2026 to 2 years federal prison | none documented | source |
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Pensacola Pharmacist and Conspirator Charged with Illegal Drug Diversion Conspiracy
2026-01-28
|
Florida Pensacola, Florida |
Pensacola, FL | Controlled substances (diversion conspiracy; tied to 2025 National Health Care Fraud Takedown) | Conspiracy to unlawfully dispense/distribute controlled substances and obtain them by fraud | not stated | Charged; trial set for Mar 2, 2026 — up to 20 years if convicted | none documented | source |
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Lakeland Nurse Sentenced to 5+ Years for Stealing Fentanyl at Five Tampa Bay Hospitals
2025-08-08
|
Florida Lakeland, Florida |
Multiple hospitals, Tampa Bay area, FL | Fentanyl — IV bags and secure medication lockers | Diverted patients' IV fentanyl into a cup or locker, diluted a bag ~50% with saline, self-injected | not stated | Pleaded guilty Apr 28, 2025; sentenced to 5 years 3 months in federal prison | none documented | source |
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Cardiac Catheterization Lab Nurse Sentenced for Tampering With Fentanyl at Miami Hospital
2025-03-18
|
Florida Miami, Florida |
Registered nurse, cardiac catheterization lab, Miami hospital (July 10-Aug. 18, 2023) | Fentanyl and midazolam | Extracted painkillers from vials for personal use and replaced with saline; refilled discarded biohazard-bin vials with saline to substitute for stolen ones | not stated | Pleaded guilty Dec. 13, 2024 to tampering with consumer products; sentenced March 18, 2025 to more than two years in federal prison | none documented | source |
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ICU Nurse Arrested for Stealing 17 Fentanyl IV Bags at Brandon Hospital
2025-02-24
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Florida Brandon, Florida |
ICU, hospital in Lithia/Brandon area (Hillsborough County, FL) | Injectable fentanyl — six tampering incidents, Oct-Dec 2023 | Removed fentanyl from a secure drawer, tampered with it, swapped tampered containers back into circulation, falsified hospital records to hide the removal | not stated | Pleaded guilty to 6 counts tampering with a consumer product + 6 counts acquiring a controlled substance by misrepresentation; sentencing not yet set | none documented | source |
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Physician terminated by employer for diverting fentanyl, versed and dilaudid from patients
2024-06
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Florida Tampa, FL |
Tampa, FL | fentanyl, versed, and dilaudid | Diverting fentanyl, versed, and dilaudid from patients; impairment; unprofessional conduct | not stated | Agreed order publicly referring the physician to the Texas Physician Health Program (TXPHP) | none documented | source |
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Jacksonville Surgical Center Nurse Pleads Guilty to Tampering With Hydromorphone
2023-10-03
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Florida Jacksonville, Florida |
Outpatient surgical center | Injectable hydromorphone | Emptied vials, refilled with saline, glued caps, and falsified administration records to conceal the theft | not stated | Pleaded guilty to tampering with a consumer product (Oct. 2023); sentencing pending | none documented | source |
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Surgery Center RN Sentenced for Swapping Fentanyl for Saline in ~450 Vials
2023-06-27
|
Florida Jensen Beach, Florida |
Circulating nurse, outpatient surgical center (Jensen Beach, Martin County, FL) | Fentanyl — swapped for saline in ~450 vials | Extracted fentanyl from vials Feb 28-Apr 18, 2022, replaced with saline, returned vials to the center for use on patients | not stated | Sentenced to 48 months + 3 yrs supervised release | none documented | source |
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Jacksonville Hospital ICU Nurse Pleads Guilty to Tampering With Patients' Fentanyl
2022-04-13
|
Florida Jacksonville, Florida |
Hospital neurological ICU (Jacksonville, Florida) | Injectable fentanyl | Removed fentanyl from syringes, replaced it with saline, and reglued tamper-evident caps to conceal the substitution | not stated | Pleaded guilty; sentencing pending | none documented | source |
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Florida emergency room nurse accused of diverting hydromorphone after syringes found in work bag; probable cause panel dismissed case
2021-09
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Florida | Hospital emergency room in Florida | Hydromorphone (two mostly empty pre-drawn 1 mg syringes) | not stated | Registered nurse | not stated | none documented | source |
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Pinellas Park pharmacy owner sentenced for filling oxycodone and hydromorphone prescriptions outside professional practice
2020-04-24
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Florida | Retail pharmacy in Pinellas Park, Florida | Oxycodone 30 mg and hydromorphone 8 mg (Schedule II) | not stated | Licensed pharmacist who owned and operated an independent pharmacy | not stated | none documented | source |
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Jacksonville Nurse Pleads Guilty to Tampering with Injectable Painkillers
2019-12-06
|
Florida Jacksonville, Florida |
Jacksonville-area hospitals (Jacksonville, FL) | Hydromorphone (Dilaudid) injectable syringes | Extracted drug from syringes, refilled with saline, returned to inventory | not stated | Pleaded guilty Dec 6, 2019; faced up to 10 years | none documented | source |
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Orlando pharmacist sentenced to more than 24 years for dispensing oxycodone on fraudulent and pill-mill prescriptions
2017-12
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Florida | Community pharmacy in Orlando, Florida | Oxycodone | not stated | Licensed pharmacist | not stated | none documented | source |
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Lutz pharmacist sentenced to 17 years for dispensing oxycodone on fraudulent prescriptions and to a DEA confidential source
2012-08-21
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Florida | Pharmacy in the Tampa area (Lutz, Florida) | Oxycodone | not stated | Licensed pharmacist | not stated | none documented | 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.