IA Pharmacist Sentenced: Stole Oxycodone

What Happened

Ryan Paul Etscheid, 40, a licensed pharmacist from La Salle, Illinois, was sentenced on April 15, 2026 to three years of probation after pleading guilty on October 27, 2025 to acquiring a controlled substance by misrepresentation, fraud, deception and subterfuge. On July 9, 2023, while working a shift at a pharmacy in Waterloo, Iowa, he created three fake patient accounts and dispensed drugs including oxycodone under them. He used similar methods at an Ottumwa pharmacy on three other dates in 2022 and 2023. He was ordered to pay $1,177.04 in restitution to the pharmacy.

“created three fake patient accounts and dispensed prescription drugs containing controlled substances, including oxycodone”
U.S. Department of Justice / U.S. Attorney's Office press release, Apr 17, 2026

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, Apr 17, 2026

Case at a Glance

Setting: Retail pharmacy
Drug: Oxycodone and other controlled substances
Method: Created fake patient accounts and dispensed drugs under them
Status: Sentenced April 15, 2026 to three years of probation and $1,177.04 restitution, after an October 27, 2025 guilty plea

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.

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
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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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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

IA Pharmacist Sentenced: Stole Oxycodone, Fake Profiles