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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Seattle Anesthesiology Resident Sentenced for Diverting Fentanyl and Hydromorphone While Treating Children
2026-02-02
|
Washington Seattle, Washington |
Resident anesthesiologist rotating through Seattle Children's Hospital, Harborview Medical Center, and UW Medical Center | Fentanyl and hydromorphone | Stole and used pain medication meant for patients, including infants, while on duty between 2022-2024; returned vials to the pharmacy refilled with saline, claiming it was "wastage" | not stated | Arrested Jun 2025; pleaded guilty Oct 2025 to obtaining controlled substances by fraud; sentenced Feb 2, 2026 to 1 year supervised release + 200 hours community service | none documented | source |
|
Agency affiliated counselor alleged to have ingested unprescribed methadone while transporting clients
2025-11
|
Washington | Washington state (employer not named in the release) | methadone | allegedly ingested unprescribed methadone while transporting clients; later admitted taking the methadone | not stated | charged with unprofessional conduct; terminated by employer | none documented | source |
|
Veterinarian charged with issuing controlled substance prescriptions without documentation and providing medications for non-patient use
2025-10
|
Washington Snohomish County, Washington |
veterinary practice | controlled substances | allegedly prescribed medications for two animals without establishing valid client relationships or conducting physical examinations, altered medical records and invoices, issued multiple controlled substance prescriptions without documentation or payment, provided these medications for non-patient use, and misrepresented the purpose of prescriptions to colleagues | not stated | charged with unprofessional conduct by the Veterinary Board of Governors | none documented | source |
|
Certified nursing assistant alleged to have diverted controlled substances from a resident at an assisted living facility
2025-08
|
Washington Whatcom County, WA |
an assisted living facility | controlled substances | allegedly diverted controlled substances from a resident and attempted to conceal the theft | not stated | charged with unprofessional conduct | none documented | source |
|
Mid-Valley Hospital Pays $15,000 Penalty Over Nurse's Hydromorphone Theft
2024-11-15
|
Washington Omak, Washington |
Mid-Valley Hospital and Clinic, Omak, Washington | Hydromorphone (Dilaudid) | Kept leftover doses instead of wasting them and used dispensing-system overrides to withdraw extra doses while override reports went unreviewed | not stated | Hospital paid $15,000 CSA civil penalty Nov. 2024; nurse entered separate state and federal diversion agreements | $15,000 (civil penalty) | source |
|
Pharmacy assistant charged after allegedly attempting to deliver a controlled substance against pharmacy policy
2024-10
|
Washington Snohomish County, Washington |
a pharmacy | a controlled substance (unspecified) | Allegedly attempted to deliver a controlled substance in violation of pharmacy policy, resulting in termination from employment; has not responded to the state's investigation | not stated | Charged with unprofessional conduct by the Pharmacy Quality Assurance Commission | none documented | source |
|
Pharmacy technician charged with diverting controlled substances on multiple occasions
2024-09
|
Washington Cowlitz County, Washington |
Pharmacy | controlled substances | Charges state the technician admitted to diverting controlled substances on multiple occasions while employed as a pharmacy technician in 2023. | not stated | Charged with unprofessional conduct by the Pharmacy Quality Assurance Commission | none documented | source |
|
Home care aide accused of failing to administer and account for residents' narcotic medications
2024-09
|
Washington | Washington state (residential care setting; employer not named in the release) | narcotic medications | Allegedly failed to document and potentially failed to administer required narcotic medications to multiple residents in her care, and failed to complete required narcotic counts | not stated | Charged with unprofessional conduct by the Home Care Aide Program | none documented | source |
|
Hospital certified nursing assistant and registered medical assistant charged with diverting oxycodone from a patient
2024-08
|
Washington Spokane County, Washington |
a hospital | oxycodone | Alleged to have falsely identified herself as a patient's sister and diverted oxycodone from that patient; also alleged to have provided the patient Adderall and Remeron without a prescription and tested positive for alprazolam. | not stated | Charged with unprofessional conduct; case pending. | none documented | source |
|
Okanogan County nurse admitted diverting controlled substances; hydromorphone removal cited
2024-07
|
Washington Okanogan County, WA |
Okanogan County, WA | hydromorphone | Removed hydromorphone for multiple patients who did not have orders for hydromorphone and did not document the administration or waste; admitted to diverting controlled substances for approximately two years. | not stated | Entered an agreed order with conditions on registered nurse and advanced registered nurse practitioner licenses; must continue to comply with a monitoring program. | none documented | source |
|
Registered nurse and advanced practice nurse charged after removing hydromorphone without patient orders and admitting to diverting controlled substances from the workplace
2024-06
|
Washington Okanogan County, Washington |
Workplace | hydromorphone | Charges state that in October 2023 the nurse removed hydromorphone for multiple patients who did not have orders for hydromorphone, and did not document the administration or waste of the medication; the nurse admitted to diverting controlled substances from the workplace for personal use over approximately two years. | not stated | Charged with unprofessional conduct by the Board of Nursing (formerly the Nursing Commission) in June 2024; the provider may respond to the Department of Health in writing, after which the case enters the settlement process. | none documented | source |
|
Pharmacy technician charged with taking Promethazine-Codeine syrup from pharmacy
2024-05
|
Washington King County, Washington |
a pharmacy | Promethazine-Codeine Syrup | Allegedly seen taking two bottles of Promethazine-Codeine Syrup from the pharmacy in December 2023; approximately 46 bottles of Promethazine-Codeine were unaccounted for during times the technician worked at pharmacies from January to December 2022. | not stated | Charged with unprofessional conduct by the Pharmacy Quality Assurance Commission in May 2024. | none documented | source |
|
Clinic pharmacy assistant charged with stealing OxyContin and Oxycodone prescriptions from the clinic where she worked
2024-05
|
Washington Whitman County, Washington |
a clinic | OxyContin and Oxycodone | Charges state that in November 2023 the pharmacy assistant stole prescriptions for OxyContin and Oxycodone from the clinic where she worked. | not stated | Charged with unprofessional conduct by the Pharmacy Quality Assurance Commission in May 2024; the case is pending. | none documented | source |
|
Confluence Health Clinic Nurse Tampered with Morphine Vials
2021-12-07
|
Washington Moses Lake, Washington |
Outpatient clinic (Confluence Health), Washington | Morphine | Removed morphine from vials with a syringe, replaced it with saline, and glued vial caps back to conceal the tampering | not stated | Pleaded guilty to tampering with a consumer product; sentencing pending | none documented | source |
|
ED Nurse Transmits Hepatitis C to Patients at Good Samaritan Hospital
2018-05
|
Washington Puyallup, Washington |
ED nurse, Good Samaritan Hospital (Puyallup, WA) | Hydromorphone and fentanyl vials | Diverted injectable narcotics for personal use, reused contaminated needles on patients, exposing 12 to hepatitis C | not stated | Pleaded guilty Sept 5, 2023 to tampering with a consumer product; faced up to 10 years | $4,000,000 (civil settlement) | source |
|
Nursing Home Nurse Sentenced for Diluting Hospice Patients' Morphine with Tap Water — Washington, 2011
2011-03-07
|
Washington Snohomish, Washington |
Merry Haven Care Center, a nursing home/hospice in Snohomish, WA | Morphine sulfate | Removed morphine from prescription vials, replaced it with tap water | not stated | Sentenced to 1 year in federal prison, 3 years supervised release | 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.