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 16 of 730 cases.
| Case / When | Where | Setting | Drug | Method | Role | Prosecution status | Penalty | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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LeMars Nurse Sentenced for Diverting Fentanyl and Hydromorphone, Falsifying Patient Records
2026-07-09
|
Iowa LeMars, Iowa |
Registered nurse / shift supervisor, healthcare facility (LeMars, IA) | Liquid fentanyl and hydromorphone (Dilaudid) | Entered false narcotics orders claiming physician authorization, diverted the drugs for personal use, falsified or failed to complete related patient charting | not stated | Pleaded guilty Mar 9, 2026; sentenced Jul 9, 2026 to 30 months prison + $1,000 fine + 1 year supervised release | $1,000 (criminal fine) | source |
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Pharmacy Owner Sentenced for Diverting Opioids From His Own Iowa Pharmacy
2025-07-28
|
Iowa Fairfield, Iowa |
Pharmacist, owner/operator of Summit Pharmacy of Iowa, Fairfield, IA (June 2022-Nov. 2023) | Oxycodone and hydrocodone (3,500+ pills) and carisoprodol (400+ pills) | Ordered pills without recording them in pharmacy inventory, took stock pills, and pulled pills from the controlled-substance take-back collection bin | not stated | Sentenced July 28, 2025 to 4 years probation and a $9,500 fine | $9,500 (criminal fine) | source |
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Pharmacist Sentenced for Diverting Controlled Substances From Mason City Pharmacies
2025-06-17
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Iowa Mason City, Iowa |
Pharmacist employed at three retail pharmacies in Mason City, IA, 2008-2023 | Codeine, phentermine, alprazolam, clonazepam, lorazepam, pregabalin, tramadol | Created unauthorized prescriptions in existing patients' names, falsified prescription and inventory records — mostly after hours — then filled and paid for the prescriptions herself | not stated | Pleaded guilty Feb. 7, 2025; sentenced June 17, 2025 to 1 month in federal prison plus 1 year supervised release | none documented | source |
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Facility Administrator Sentenced for Diverting Opioids From Five Senior-Care Facilities
2025-05-28
|
Iowa Iowa |
Administrator, five nursing and senior living facilities, Iowa (Sept. 2021-Nov. 2022) | Fentanyl patches, hydrocodone, morphine, oxycodone | Stole medications from facilities' narcotics emergency kits and locked medication carts and rooms | not stated | Sentenced May 28, 2025 to 3 years probation, a $5,000 fine, and $1,975.61 restitution | $5,000 (criminal fine) | source |
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Nurse Anesthetist Sentenced for Diverting Fentanyl from ~50 Patients
2025-04-02
|
Iowa Dubuque, Iowa |
Nurse anesthetist, hospital in Dubuque, IA (earlier diversion at a Platteville, WI hospital) | Fentanyl — diverted from nearly 50 patients Oct 2022-Jan 2023 | Diverted fentanyl for personal use, illegally accessed patient records and made false statements in them to make it appear fentanyl had been given to patients when it had not | not stated | Pleaded guilty Nov 13, 2024; sentenced Apr 2, 2025 to 3 months prison, 6 months home confinement, $5,000 fine, 3 yrs supervised release | $5,000 (criminal fine) | source |
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Labor & Delivery Nurse Stole Pain Meds from 50+ New Mothers
2024-03-27
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Iowa Waterloo, Iowa |
Labor & delivery nurse, Waterloo, Iowa hospital | Controlled substances incl. fentanyl — vial tampered with saline | Diverted medication meant for new mothers to herself; falsely charted doses as administered | not stated | Pleaded guilty Oct 12, 2023; sentenced Mar 27, 2024 to 1 yr + 1 day + 3 yrs supervised release | none documented | source |
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Iowa Nurse Pleads Guilty to Diverting Controlled Substances from Life Care Center
2023-11-30
|
Iowa Carroll, Iowa |
Life care center (long-term care facility), Carroll, Iowa | Controlled substances diverted from resident supplies (unspecified schedule) | Diverted controlled substances intended for residents and falsified related patient documentation to conceal the theft | not stated | Pleaded guilty, November 2023, in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Iowa; sentencing pending | none documented | source |
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Iowa Nurse Pleads Guilty to Diverting Fentanyl from Waterloo Hospital via False Wasting
2023-10-11
|
Iowa Waterloo, Iowa |
Hospital, Waterloo, Iowa (part of a multi-hospital network) | Fentanyl, hydromorphone, and morphine | Falsely documented wasting full vials after patients purportedly refused the drug, then diverted the undocumented remainder for personal use | not stated | Pleaded guilty, October 2023, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Iowa; nursing license forfeited; sentencing pending | none documented | source |
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Sioux City Nurse Pleads Guilty to Stealing Opioids from Hospital Employer
2023-08-31
|
Iowa Sioux City, Iowa |
Hospital, Sioux City, Iowa | Fentanyl, morphine, hydromorphone, and hydrocodone | Diverted drugs intended for patients and falsified controlled-substance disbursement log entries to conceal the shortage | not stated | Pleaded guilty, August 30, 2023, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Iowa; sentencing pending | none documented | source |
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Iowa Nurse Pleads Guilty to Diverting Fentanyl From Elderly Patients' IV Pumps
2022-11-21
|
Iowa Clear Lake, Iowa |
Healthcare facility caring for elderly patients, Iowa | Liquid fentanyl | Withdrew fentanyl directly from patients' IV pumps using a syringe, diverting doses meant for their pain management | not stated | Pleaded guilty to acquiring a controlled substance by fraud, deception, and subterfuge; sentencing pending | none documented | source |
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Dubuque Pharmacist Sentenced for Stealing and Tampering With Patients' Medications
2022-10-31
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Iowa Dubuque, Iowa |
Retail pharmacy (two Dubuque, Iowa pharmacies) | Controlled-substance capsule medications | Stole from pharmacy inventory and opened already-filled prescription capsules to remove the drug before patients picked them up | not stated | Pleaded guilty; sentenced to 24 months, $10,000 fine, $9,993 restitution, pharmacy license forfeited | $10,000 (criminal fine) | source |
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Cedar Rapids Surgery Center Nurse Sentenced for Tampering With Fentanyl Vials
2022-01-21
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Iowa Cedar Rapids, Iowa |
Outpatient surgery center, Cedar Rapids, Iowa | Fentanyl | Punctured fentanyl vial caps with a needle to withdraw the drug, refilled with saline, and reglued the caps to disguise the tampering | not stated | Pleaded guilty to drug fraud and product misbranding; sentenced to 5 years probation, $10,000 fine, forfeited nursing license | $10,000 (criminal fine) | source |
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Eastern Iowa ICU Nurse Sentenced for Stealing Patient's Fentanyl and Morphine
2020-06-26
|
Iowa Cedar Rapids, Iowa |
ICU, Cedar Rapids, Iowa hospital | Fentanyl and morphine | Over-obtained doses from pharmacy and withdrew drug directly from a patient's IV line | not stated | Pleaded guilty; sentenced Jun 26, 2020 to federal prison | $5,500 (criminal fine) | source |
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CRNA Tampered with Fentanyl Vials at Charles City Hospital
2020-05-29
|
Iowa Charles City, Iowa |
CRNA, Charles City hospital surgery & birthing centers (Charles City, IA) | Fentanyl and sufentanil | Perforated tamper-proof vial seals, replaced drug with saline, glued vials shut, returned to secure dispensaries | not stated | Pleaded guilty Aug 1, 2019; sentenced to 34 months + $15,000 fine + $31,998.34 restitution | $31,998 (restitution) | source |
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Iowa Nursing Home Nurse Sentenced for Stealing Patients' Pain Medication
2020-01-28
|
Iowa Manchester, Iowa |
Nursing home (Manchester, IA) | Hydrocodone, morphine, oxycodone, codeine, tramadol | Took pills from 14+ patients by deception; diluted liquid morphine with mouthwash | not stated | Pleaded guilty; sentenced Jan 28, 2020 to 4 years | $593 (restitution) | source |
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Pharmacy Technician Diverts Fentanyl at Iowa Methodist Medical Center
2018-07-10
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Iowa Des Moines, Iowa |
Pharmacy technician, Iowa Methodist Medical Center (Des Moines, IA) | Fentanyl vials | Extracted fentanyl with syringe, self-injected, refilled vials with a different fluid, returned to storage | not stated | Sentenced Jul 10, 2018 — 30 months + 3 yrs supervised release | 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.