In October 2022 an Idaho Falls police officer responded to a theft report at an assisted living center. The owner said an employee had made unauthorized purchases on the company credit card and had also taken 190 hydrocodone pills belonging to elderly residents the employee cared for. According to the report, on August 5 the employee assembled medication packets for four residents, placed them in bubble packs, left them at the medication cart and then quit.
The next day, staff dispensing the medications noticed the pills looked wrong. On checking, they found that all of the hydrocodone for the four residents had been replaced with acetaminophen. Staff told the officer they had no access to the facility's bubble-packing materials, which were kept locked in the employee's office. The employee told police that multiple people had access to the packing materials and that narcotic medications arrived from the pharmacy already prepackaged, and suggested the owner was acting vindictively after the resignation.
The employee was charged with felony grand theft, felony obtaining a controlled substance by fraud or forgery and misdemeanor abuse or neglect of a vulnerable adult, and pleaded not guilty. Under a plea agreement, the employee entered an Alford plea in October 2023 to an amended charge of criminal possession of a financial transaction card or number. The prosecution agreed to dismiss the remaining charges, recommend probation and not oppose a withheld judgment. The unauthorized card charges were reported to exceed $3,000.
An Alford plea allows a defendant to accept a conviction without admitting the conduct, so the drug substitution allegations were never adjudicated. Sentencing was scheduled for January 2, 2024. The article does not describe changes the facility made to its medication handling afterward.