Boulder County Veterinarian Indicted

What Happened

Lindsay Oklesh, 37, a doctor of veterinary medicine from Boulder County, Colorado, was indicted by a federal grand jury in October 2022 for fraudulently obtaining fentanyl. According to the indictment, between March 10, 2020 and September 22, 2021, she used her DEA registration number to purchase controlled substances from a distributor while misrepresenting that they were for legitimate veterinary patients rather than for her personal use. She made her initial appearance on October 11, 2022. The charges are allegations, and she is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

“has been indicted by a federal grand jury for fraudulently obtaining fentanyl, which is a controlled substance”
U.S. Department of Justice / U.S. Attorney's Office press release, Oct 11, 2022

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, Oct 11, 2022

Case at a Glance

Setting: Veterinary practice
Drug: Fentanyl
Method: Used DEA registration to purchase drugs while misrepresenting they were for veterinary patients
Status: Indicted by federal grand jury; initial appearance October 11, 2022

Source: U.S. Department of Justice

What this case shows

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.

Conference presentations

2025 — The Rounding Revolution: A High-Tech Approach to Diversion Prevention (with Emily Spiceland, PharmD)
2024 — No Pill Left Behind: Strategies for Comprehensive Drug Accountability (with Eric Andrews)
2022 — Ready for My Close Up! Implementing, Maintaining, and Expanding Drug Diversion Prevention Cameras (with Jeremy Quinn, Shawn Young, and John Bailey)

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Faculty, ASHP Drug Diversion Certificate
Speaker, Health Care Compliance Association (HCCA)
Published author, Pharmacy Purchasing & Products

Credentials

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

The assessment items, weighting, and case registry behind this site come from that operational background — building and running a diversion prevention program, not from vendor marketing. Every tool here is free, requires no signup, and is based on published regulatory and professional standards (DEA, Joint Commission, ASHP, CDC).

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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

Boulder County Veterinarian Indicted for Fentanyl Fraud