On April 16, 2016, a pharmacy technician at a Charlotte chain pharmacy was handling prescriptions at the drive-thru window when an unidentified man handed over two prescriptions, one for Percocet and one for oxycodone, with a $100 bill tucked between them. The oxycodone prescription listed only the drug and quantity and carried no patient information. The man asked the technician to fill in the missing details with another patient's information.
The technician accepted the $100, accessed the pharmacy's patient portal, retrieved a different patient's information and used it to complete the oxycodone prescription. The pharmacist filled both prescriptions and placed them in the waiting bin, from which the technician retrieved them and handed them to the man.
That same day a pharmacist filed a report expressing concern that a technician might be passing fraudulent prescriptions, and the pharmacy opened an investigation. The next day, after reviewing security footage and the prescriptions filled the day before, investigators interviewed the technician, who signed a written statement acknowledging taking the prescriptions and receiving $100 to process them.
The technician was indicted on one count of embezzlement of a controlled substance by an employee of a registrant or practitioner, and a Mecklenburg County jury returned a guilty verdict on May 9, 2019. On appeal the technician argued the conduct was not embezzlement and that the State had not proved the pharmacy was a registrant. The Court of Appeals rejected those arguments and affirmed the conviction on December 15, 2020, with one judge dissenting on the embezzlement question.