Boise NP Sentenced to 48 Months

What Happened

Angela Kathryn Hughes, 50, a nurse practitioner in Boise, Idaho, was sentenced in November 2024 to 48 months in federal prison for conspiracy to distribute controlled substances. Court records state that between January 2022 and March 2023 she issued illegitimate prescriptions for oxycodone, oxycodone acetaminophen and hydrocodone acetaminophen, receiving cash, a portion of the pills and other drugs such as methamphetamine. The prescriptions totaled about 4,358, 2,854 and 2,625 pills respectively. She was also ordered to serve three years of supervised release. Co-defendant Sydney Neal was earlier sentenced to five years of probation.

“Angela Kathryn Hughes, 50, of Boise, was sentenced to 48 months in federal prison for conspiracy to distribute controlled substances”
U.S. Department of Justice / U.S. Attorney's Office press release, Nov 7, 2024

Related Guidance

15 Red Flags of Drug Diversion — Behavioral and transactional indicators of diversion.
Investigation Playbook — How to investigate suspected diversion inside an organization.

Sources

U.S. Department of Justice / U.S. Attorney's Office press release, Nov 7, 2024

Case at a Glance

Setting: Nurse practitioner practice
Drug: Oxycodone, oxycodone-acetaminophen, hydrocodone-acetaminophen
Method: Illegitimate prescriptions in exchange for cash, pills and other drugs
Status: Sentenced to 48 months in federal prison, November 2024, plus three years supervised release

Source: U.S. Department of Justice

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Where this record connects to the site's working material. Links are chosen from the case's setting, drug and method fields.

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Last reviewed: September 2026 · Educational content, not legal advice.

About the author

DivertGuard is built and maintained by Alex Rodriguez, MHIIM, CPhT (also known as Jesus Rodriguez) — a drug diversion prevention program manager with more than a decade in pharmacy practice, including direct responsibility for a health-system controlled substance diversion prevention program.

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Doctorate candidate — Doctor of Health Informatics (DHI), Rutgers University, School of Health Professions; research on health data analytics and the prediction of cognitive decline
MHIIM — master's in health informatics, University of Tennessee Health Science Center (2019–2021)
CPhT — Certified Pharmacy Technician, with 10+ years of pharmacy practice across retail, hospice, compounding, home-health, and hospital settings

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Related Resources

Diversion Settlements & Fines

Settlements, civil penalties and criminal fines paid by hospitals and pharmacies in documented drug diversion cases, with the amount, year and primary source for each

Penalty Outcomes in the Case Records

Counts of the outcomes the registry records state: prison, probation, fines, licence actions and restitution, with stated sentence lengths by band and by drug class

Registry Insights: Sentences, Fines, States and Outcomes

Sentence lengths, fines and restitution, cases per 100,000 pharmacists by state, and plea and licence outcomes, each counted from the case records with its n, plus charts of cases by year, state and drug class

Boise NP Sentenced to 48 Months in Oxycodone Scheme