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 11 of 730 cases.
| Case / When | Where | Setting | Drug | Method | Role | Prosecution status | Penalty | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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Savannah-Area Weight-Loss Clinic Physician Pays $100,000 Over Controlled-Substance Recordkeeping Failures
2024-09-11
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Georgia Savannah, Georgia |
Scale Solutions weight-loss clinics, Savannah area, Georgia | Phentermine and phendimetrazine | Physician failed to maintain required inventory and dispensing records for controlled substances and repeatedly moved them from DEA-registered offices to his home | not stated | Physician paid $100,000 civil penalty and accepted two years of increased DEA oversight, September 2024 | $100,000 (civil penalty) | source |
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Licensed practical nurse removed controlled substances from workplace while also working under a suspended license and submitting a fraudulent Board letter
2023-03
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Georgia | her workplace | Controlled substances (specific drug not stated in the source) | Removed controlled substances from her workplace, in addition to working as an LPN while her license was suspended and drafting a fraudulent letter purportedly from the Nursing Board | not stated | License revoked by the Georgia Board of Nursing; revocation upheld by the Court | none documented | source |
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Nursing Home Employees Sentenced for Stealing and Reselling Patients' Alprazolam
2021-04-19
|
Georgia Brunswick, Georgia |
Guest services rep + LPN, nursing and personal care facility (Brunswick, GA) | Alprazolam | Stole drugs from patient supplies and resold them for shared profit, Dec 2019-early 2020; caught after an internal facility review found drugs missing | not stated | Indicted May 2020; both pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute — Gibson sentenced to probation Mar 2021, Ellison sentenced to probation Apr 15, 2021 | none documented | source |
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Georgia Pharmacy Owner Charged Over Fake Prescriptions and Unauthorized Controlled Substance Distribution
2019-07-15
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Georgia Baxley, Georgia |
Fulghum Discount Drugs, Baxley, GA | Controlled substances distributed without a valid prescription | Beginning as early as January 2015 and continuing until at least October 2018, created fake prescriptions purportedly for Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries and billed those programs, and separately distributed controlled substances to individuals without a physician's prescription | not stated | Charged via criminal information July 15, 2019, with Conspiracy with Objects of Healthcare Fraud and Unlawful Distribution of Controlled Substances; up to 5 years in federal prison if convicted | none documented | source |
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Georgia Pharmacist-in-Charge Charged Over False Statements in Controlled-Substance Dispensing Audit
2019-07-15
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Georgia Darien, Georgia |
A pharmacy in Darien, GA | Controlled substances dispensed from prescriptions written by high-volume prescribers | From 2015 through 2017, filled a large number of controlled-substance prescriptions from high-volume prescribers, then drafted false and fraudulent statements in documents that the DEA would review as part of a regulatory compliance audit of her dispensing history | not stated | Charged via criminal information July 15, 2019, with False Statements Related to Healthcare; up to 5 years in federal prison if convicted | none documented | source |
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Health system settles alleged opioid diversion case over tens of thousands of missing oxycodone 30 mg tablets
2018-05
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Georgia Springfield, GA |
Effingham Health System | oxycodone 30 mg tablets | Alleged large-scale diversion of opioids; tens of thousands of oxycodone 30 mg tablets were reported missing over more than four years, and the health system allegedly failed to notify authorities of the suspected diversion within the time required by federal law. | not stated | Agreed to pay $4.1 million to settle the claims; the system said it has since overhauled pharmacy recordkeeping and reporting and implemented electronic inventory systems. At the time, the largest settlement of its kind for hospital drug diversion; the DEA investigation was launched in 2017. | none documented | source |
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Georgia hospital settles allegations over unaccounted 30 mg oxycodone tablets believed diverted
2018-05
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Georgia | a Georgia hospital | oxycodone (30 mg tablets) | allegedly failed to provide effective controls and procedures to guard against theft and loss of controlled substances, resulting in tens of thousands of 30 mg oxycodone tablets unaccounted for and believed diverted for illegal uses over a four-year period, and allegedly failed to notify DEA of suspected diversion within the requisite time period | not stated | $4.1 million civil settlement and performance improvement plan with DEA | none documented | source |
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Emergency room nurse suspended indefinitely for diverting controlled substances from an automated medication administration machine
2016-04
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Georgia | emergency room of a hospital | controlled substances | repeatedly withdrew controlled substances from an automated medication administration machine and failed to document that they were administered to patients; a drug screen showed three controlled substances in the nurse's system | not stated | suspended until able to demonstrate twelve months of continued sobriety and thereafter placed on probation; the Georgia Board of Nursing's proposed sanction was upheld | none documented | source |
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Hospital emergency room nurse diverted controlled substances from an automated medication administration machine
2016-04
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Georgia | a hospital emergency room | controlled substances | repeatedly withdrew controlled substances from an automated medication administration machine and failed to document that they were administered to patients; a drug screen indicated three controlled substances in the nurse's system | not stated | suspended indefinitely; required to demonstrate twelve months of continued sobriety and thereafter placed on probation | none documented | source |
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Emory Hospital Pharmacy Technicians Diverted More Than 1 Million Doses of Controlled Substances
2016-02-01
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Georgia Atlanta, GA |
Hospital pharmacy (Emory University Hospital Midtown, Atlanta, GA) | Alprazolam, hydrocodone, and codeine products | Pharmacy technicians misappropriated buyer credentials to order and receive controlled substances, bypassing receiving and inventory checks | not stated | Georgia Board of Pharmacy consent order finalized February 2016; $200,000 fine and 3-year pharmacy license probation | $200,000 (civil penalty) | source |
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University hospital employees fired for diverting controlled substances including alprazolam and hydrocodone
2016-02
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Georgia | Emory University hospital | alprazolam (Xanax), codeine, hydrocodone | Two hospital employees illegally diverted more than a million doses of controlled substances in a scheme that lasted nearly five years. | not stated | The employees were fired; a consent order fined the hospital $200,000 and placed its pharmacy license on probation for three years; the matter was reported to the DEA. | none documented | source |
Every filtered view has its own URL, so it can be linked or bookmarked. The same filters work on the JSON feed: /api/cases.json.
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.