What Happened
Sarah Jean Moses, a registered nurse from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, was sentenced in January 2023 to five years in federal prison after pleading guilty in 2021 and 2022 to five felonies, including tampering with a consumer product and obtaining a controlled substance by misrepresentation, fraud, forgery, deception, or subterfuge. Between 2017 and 2019 she acquired hydromorphone, morphine, and oxycodone from her employers. The release states she tampered with vials, replacing pain medication with saline and restocking them in a drug dispensing machine, and diverted 56 oxycodone pills from an assisted living resident. Several employers terminated her and reported her to the Iowa Board of Nursing.
“Moses secretly tampered with the vials of the controlled substances, replacing the pain medication with saline”
Related Guidance
- 15 Red Flags of Drug Diversion — Behavioral and transactional indicators of diversion.
- Investigation Playbook — How to investigate suspected diversion inside an organization.