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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Missouri nurse forged oxycodone and Percocet prescriptions using a coworker's pad and DEA number
2026-07-10
|
Missouri | Hospital in Kansas City, Kansas; prescriptions filled at pharmacies in Kansas and Missouri | Oxycodone and Percocet (13 forged prescriptions; 1,980 tablets total) | not stated | Registered nurse | not stated | none documented | source |
|
Osage Beach Nurse Anesthetist Diverted Fentanyl from Hospital Operating Rooms
2024-12-16
|
Missouri Osage Beach, Missouri |
Lake Regional Hospital operating rooms, Osage Beach, Missouri | Fentanyl and hydromorphone | Scanned vials to generate labels affixed to saline-filled syringes, pulled extra vials during procedures, and falsified patient charts | not stated | Pleaded guilty Dec. 16, 2024, to obtaining a controlled substance by misrepresentation; faces up to 4 years in prison | none documented | source |
|
Cape Girardeau Nurse Admits Taking Leftover Fentanyl from Hospital
2023-05-05
|
Missouri Cape Girardeau, Missouri |
Saint Francis Medical Center, ED (Cape Girardeau, MO) | Fentanyl — leftover/tampered vials | Self-administered leftover fentanyl from tampered vials | not stated | Pleaded guilty May 2023; sentencing pending | $5,000 (criminal fine) | source |
|
Missouri Methadone Clinic Owner Admits Diluting Methadone to Conceal a Shortage from the DEA
2023-02-03
|
Missouri Leadington, Missouri |
DEA-registered outpatient methadone clinic (narcotic treatment program), Leadington, Missouri | Methadone oral concentrate | Diluted the clinic's bulk methadone supply with saline and water to conceal a shortage from the DEA, after submitting an inaccurate loss-report form | not stated | Pleaded guilty, February 2023, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri; DEA registration surrendered; sentencing scheduled for May 2023 | none documented | source |
|
St. Louis County Hospital Nurse Pleads Guilty to Fraudulently Obtaining Fentanyl
2022-10-27
|
Missouri St. Louis County, Missouri |
Hospital (Mercy Hospital South, St. Louis County, Missouri) | Fentanyl | Fraudulently withdrew fentanyl doses from an automated dispensing machine for personal use | not stated | Pleaded guilty; sentencing pending | none documented | source |
|
Missouri nurse diverted fentanyl at two hospitals after being fired for the first diversion
2022-10
|
Missouri | A St. Louis-area hospital, then a hospital intensive care unit | Fentanyl | not stated | Registered nurse | not stated | none documented | source |
|
Missouri Nurse License Revoked Over Hospital Opioid Diversion and Unauthorized Badge Access
2022-07-05
|
Missouri St. Louis, Missouri |
Mercy Hospital East, St. Louis, Missouri | Morphine and hydromorphone | Extracted drug residue from vials after administering patient doses and refilled the vials with an identical amount of saline solution to conceal the theft; also retrieved used vials from medical waste containers; after suspension, accessed the hospital 127 times over 18 days using her employee badge, and a drug test returned positive for morphine | not stated | Missouri Board of Nursing revoked the license on July 5, 2022; a circuit court reversed the board's order on January 29, 2023, and the board issued a probated license per the court's order on April 3, 2023 | none documented | source |
|
Southeast Missouri medical center paid $1.6 million to resolve invalid opioid prescribing claims
2021-09-01
|
Missouri | Medical center in southeast Missouri; physician practiced in Farmington, Missouri | Morphine, hydromorphone and oxycodone, prescribed alongside muscle relaxers and benzodiazepines | not stated | Employed physician (prescriber) at a hospital-affiliated practice | not stated | none documented | source |
|
Paramedic Stole and Diluted Ambulance Fentanyl and Hydromorphone
2020-09-17
|
Missouri Carthage / Mount Vernon, Missouri |
Mercy EMS ambulance and office narcotics stock (Carthage/Mount Vernon, MO) | Fentanyl and hydromorphone vials | Punctured vials, removed drug, refilled with saline/water; under-dosed a patient to steal the rest | not stated | Pleaded guilty Sep 17, 2020; faced up to 10 years | none documented | source |
|
ICU Nurse Steals Fentanyl IV Bags at Research Medical Center
2020-06-18
|
Missouri Kansas City, Missouri |
ICU nurse, HCA Research Medical Center (Kansas City, MO) | Compounded fentanyl IV bag | Ordered fentanyl IV bag under a false name/pretense, extracted the drug, refilled bag with an unknown liquid | not stated | Pleaded guilty to obtaining a controlled substance by fraud | none documented | source |
|
Missouri Nurse's Probation Extended Over Employer Medication Diversion
2020-04
|
Missouri Missouri |
not stated | Prescription medications and syringes; facility and specific drug not named in the court opinion | Unlawfully took and consumed medications requiring a prescription from her employer over several months in 2019 | not stated | Board imposed 3 years' probation with random screening in April 2020; extended the probation by 4 years in November 2022 after a positive alcohol metabolite test; Court of Appeals affirmed the board's action May 28, 2024 | 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.