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 19 of 730 cases.
| Case / When | Where | Setting | Drug | Method | Role | Prosecution status | Penalty | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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Chicago pharmacy settles federal claims after technicians diverted hydrocodone
2025-09-15
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Illinois | Retail pharmacy, Logan Square neighborhood of Chicago | Hydrocodone (more than 56,000 pills); records also deficient for hydrocodone-acetaminophen and alprazolam | not stated | Two pharmacy technicians | not stated | none documented | source |
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Chicago pharmacy settles federal Controlled Substances Act claims after technician hydrocodone thefts
2025-09-15
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Illinois | Retail pharmacy, Chicago | Hydrocodone; recordkeeping gaps also involving hydrocodone-acetaminophen and alprazolam | not stated | Pharmacy (registrant); two pharmacy technicians | not stated | none documented | source |
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Chicago pharmacy settles Controlled Substances Act claims after technicians stole hydrocodone
2025-09-15
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Illinois | Retail pharmacy in Chicago's Logan Square neighborhood | Hydrocodone (more than 56,000 pills); recordkeeping gaps also cited for hydrocodone-acetaminophen and alprazolam | not stated | Two pharmacy technicians | not stated | none documented | source |
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Illinois hospital nurse fired over suspected opioid diversion loses federal discrimination appeal
2025-08-14
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Illinois | Acute care hospital | Two controlled opioids, including morphine, removed from a secure dispensing system | not stated | Registered nurse | not stated | none documented | source |
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Illinois nursing-facility administrator sentenced to probation for diverting opioids from emergency kits and medication carts
2025-05-28
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Illinois | At least five healthcare facilities (federal case prosecuted in the Southern District of Iowa) | Fentanyl patches, hydrocodone, morphine, oxycodone | not stated | Administrator at nursing and senior living facilities | not stated | none documented | source |
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Central Illinois pharmacy technician sentenced to 30 months for diverting hydrocodone and other controlled substances
2023-09-13
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Illinois | Pharmacy, Central District of Illinois | Hydrocodone, alprazolam, promethazine with codeine | not stated | Pharmacy technician | not stated | none documented | source |
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Chicago-Area Rehab Center Nursing Director Pleads Guilty to Diluting Patients' Morphine
2023-04-11
|
Illinois Chicago, Illinois |
Medical rehabilitation center | Liquid morphine | Removed morphine from prescribed bottles, diluted remaining doses with another liquid, and administered the weakened doses to patients | not stated | Pleaded guilty to tampering with a consumer product (April 2023); sentencing pending | none documented | source |
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Le Roy pharmacy technician pleaded guilty to diverting hydrocodone and other controlled substances
2022-11
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Illinois | Pharmacy, Le Roy, Illinois | Hydrocodone (over 28,000 pills), alprazolam, promethazine with codeine | not stated | Pharmacy technician | not stated | none documented | source |
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Illinois Dentist Charged with Tampering with Patients' Fentanyl
2022-02-10
|
Illinois Rochester, Illinois |
Dentist, Rochester, IL practice | Fentanyl — surgical anesthesia vials | Pierced fentanyl vials before patient surgeries, removed half the drug for personal use, refilled vials with another solution and administered the diluted fentanyl as anesthesia | not stated | Indicted Feb 1, 2022 on 8 counts of drug diversion + 8 counts of acquiring a controlled substance by fraud + tampering + false statements; arrested Feb 7, 2022 | $200,000 (criminal fine) | source |
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Carterville Nurse Diverted Hydrocodone at Disability Care Center
2021-09-16
|
Illinois Carterville, Illinois |
Residential care facility for adults with intellectual disabilities (Progress Port), Illinois | Hydrocodone | Falsely claimed doses were dispensed to a resident, diverted the pills, and replaced some with over-the-counter Tylenol | not stated | Sentenced to 4 years' probation, $500 fine, on felony drug diversion and health care fraud charges | $500 (criminal fine) | source |
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Chicago pharmacy technician sentenced to five years for stealing and selling hydrocodone
2019-11-21
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Illinois | Retail discount pharmacy, Chicago | Hydrocodone (approximately 56,108 pills) | not stated | Pharmacy technician | not stated | none documented | source |
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Chicago Pharmacy Technician Sentenced for Stealing 56,000 Hydrocodone Pills
2019-11-20
|
Illinois Chicago, Illinois |
Pharmacy technician, Allcare Discount Pharmacy (Chicago, IL) | Hydrocodone — approx. 56,108 pills | Stole pills with a co-defendant, falsified inventory records to conceal the theft, sold the pills for profit | not stated | Pleaded guilty; sentenced Nov 2019 to 5 years in federal prison | $250,000 (civil settlement) | source |
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Springfield chain pharmacy technician admitted stealing thousands of hydrocodone tablets over nine months
2018-04-19
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Illinois | Chain retail pharmacy, Springfield | Hydrocodone tablets | not stated | Pharmacy technician | not stated | none documented | source |
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Palos Park physician's medical and controlled substance licenses temporarily suspended over prescribing
2017-10
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Illinois | Private medical practice, Palos Park, Illinois | Controlled substances (unspecified) | not stated | Physician and surgeon | not stated | none documented | source |
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Schaumburg psychiatrist temporarily suspended over boundary violations and controlled substance prescribing
2017-10
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Illinois | Private psychiatric practice, Schaumburg, Illinois | Controlled substances (unspecified) | not stated | Physician and surgeon (psychiatric practice) | not stated | none documented | source |
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MedStar Ambulance Paramedic Supervisor Charged with Tampering with Fentanyl and Morphine
2017-01-18
|
Illinois O'Fallon, Illinois |
MedStar Ambulance Inc. (O'Fallon / Metro East St. Louis, IL) | Fentanyl and morphine — ambulance narcotic supply | Punctured tamper-resistant vial packaging with a needle, replaced drug with water/saline, falsified records to conceal losses | not stated | Indicted Jan 18, 2017; convicted on all 38 counts; sentenced Aug 21, 2018 to 111 months | none documented | source |
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Illinois nursing home nurse diverted hydrocodone by falsely recording resident requests
2016-10-17
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Illinois | Long-term care facility in Belleville, Illinois | Hydrocodone (Schedule II opioid) | not stated | Nurse | not stated | none documented | source |
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Illinois emergency room nurse diverted hydromorphone from Pekin hospital
2016-10-06
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Illinois | Hospital in Pekin, Illinois | Hydromorphone (Schedule II opioid) | not stated | Emergency room nurse | not stated | none documented | source |
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Illinois hospital bacteremia outbreak linked to nurse drug diversion
2006
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Illinois | Hospital in Illinois | not stated | not stated | Nurse | 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.