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 14 of 730 cases.
| Case / When | Where | Setting | Drug | Method | Role | Prosecution status | Penalty | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Montana Health Center Nursing Director Sentenced for Tampering With Fentanyl
2026-04-29
|
Montana Jordan, Montana |
Nursing director, county health center (Jordan, MT) | Fentanyl and other controlled substances (liquid and tablet) | Removed and replaced vial caps, emptied containers, tampered with pharmacy med-room stock; found with tampering supplies in her office | not stated | Pleaded guilty Dec 2025 to tampering with consumer products; sentenced Apr 29, 2026 to 3 years probation | none documented | source |
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Nursing Director Pleads Guilty to Tampering With Fentanyl at Montana Health Center
2025-12-16
|
Montana Jordan, Montana |
Director of Nursing, Garfield County Health Center, Jordan, MT | Fentanyl and other hospital-stock controlled substances | Tampered with vials in locked office — caps removed and replaced, or emptied — with counterfeit replacement labels and caps on hand | not stated | Pleaded guilty Dec. 16, 2025 to tampering with a consumer product; sentencing set for April 15, 2026 | none documented | source |
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Former Kalispell assisted living employee admitted diverting pain medication
2024-11
|
Montana | Assisted living facility, Kalispell | Pain medication | not stated | Assisted living facility employee (former) | not stated | none documented | source |
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Missoula Hospital Nurse Sentenced for Diverting Opioids Flagged by Distribution Audit
2023-03-22
|
Montana Missoula, Montana |
Hospital (St. Patrick Hospital) | Oxycodone, hydromorphone, hydrocodone, fentanyl, morphine | Ordered opioids at above-peer rates and diverted hospice-style waste amounts by substituting saline before disposal | not stated | Pleaded guilty; sentenced to 3 years' probation (March 2023) | none documented | source |
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Traveling Nurse Sentenced for Diverting Opioids at Four Montana Facilities
2022-10-13
|
Montana Anaconda, Montana |
Hospital and long-term care/rehabilitation facilities, Montana | Oxycodone, hydrocodone | Withdrew opioids from pharmacy stock without administering or documenting them to patients; altered and destroyed medication logs | not stated | Pleaded guilty to 3 counts of unlawfully obtaining controlled substances; sentenced to 1 year and 1 day in prison plus 1 year supervised release | none documented | source |
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Butte Hospital Nurse Sentenced for Diverting Hydromorphone Cartridges
2022-09-08
|
Montana Butte, Montana |
Hospital, post-operative floor, Butte, Montana | Hydromorphone | Recorded false 'waste' entries and cancelled medication orders after administering doses to herself instead of patients | not stated | Pleaded guilty to unlawfully obtaining a controlled substance; sentenced to 5 years probation | none documented | source |
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Missoula Hospital Nurse Sentenced for Diverting Fentanyl and Hydromorphone
2022-04-26
|
Montana Missoula, Montana |
Hospital (Community Medical Center, Missoula, Montana) | Fentanyl and hydromorphone | Diverted vials and syringes during patient care and had a coworker unknowingly witness the disposal of tampered medication | not stated | Pleaded guilty; sentenced to 2 years probation and a $2,000 fine | $2,000 (criminal fine) | source |
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Former Ennis pharmacist pleaded guilty to opioid distribution and was sentenced to prison and fined
2020-11
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Montana | Pharmacy, Ennis | Opioids | not stated | Pharmacist (former) | not stated | none documented | source |
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Montana Pharmacist Pleads Guilty to Filling Fraudulent Opioid Prescriptions for Himself
2020-07-30
|
Montana Ennis, Montana |
Pharmacist-in-charge, Ennis Pharmacy (Ennis, MT) | Hydrocodone (Norco 10-325mg) | Filled self-directed prescriptions never authorized by the named physician, and altered a friend's prescription strength and quantity before filling it himself | not stated | Pleaded guilty July 2020 to dispensing a controlled substance by a practitioner and obtaining a controlled substance by fraud; sentencing set for Nov. 19, 2020 | $125,000 (civil penalty) | source |
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St. Vincent Healthcare Nurse Swapped Patient's Pain Pills for Acetaminophen
2019-10-29
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Montana Billings, Montana |
St. Vincent Healthcare (Billings, MT) | Hydrocodone (patient's prescribed pain pills) | Swapped patient's hydrocodone pills for over-the-counter acetaminophen | not stated | Pleaded guilty; sentenced Oct 29, 2019 to 4 years' probation | none documented | source |
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Tribal pharmacy in St. Ignatius paid civil penalty after about 2,500 oxycodone pills went missing
2018-12
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Montana | Tribal health department pharmacy, St. Ignatius | Oxycodone (approximately 2,500 pills stolen or unaccounted for) | not stated | not stated | not stated | none documented | source |
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Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes' Pharmacy Settles Over Missing Oxycodone
2018-11-20
|
Montana St. Ignatius, Montana |
Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes' Pharmacy (St. Ignatius, MT) | Oxycodone — approximately 2,500 pills unaccounted for | Inadequate recordkeeping and failure to report missing controlled substances to DEA | not stated | Civil settlement, $95,520 — announced Nov 20, 2018 | $95,520 (civil penalty) | source |
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Montana reservation pharmacy settled over 2,500 unaccounted-for oxycodone tablets
2018-11-19
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Montana | Pharmacy on the Flathead Indian Reservation in St. Ignatius, Montana | Oxycodone (approximately 2,500 tablets unaccounted for, March 2017 to March 2018) | not stated | Tribal pharmacy (organizational respondent, no individual charged) | not stated | none documented | source |
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Billings man sentenced to 48 months in prison for theft of drugs from a Walgreens pharmacy
2015-01
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Montana | Retail pharmacy (Walgreens), Billings | not stated | not stated | not stated | not stated | 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.