July 27, 2007

Nurse Arrested for Stealing Drugs from Hospital

District Attorney and police department charge nurse after theft of powerful painkillers from Rockville Centre hospital

MINEOLA – Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice announced today that a joint investigation into narcotics theft by her Medicaid Fraud Unit and the Narcotics/Vice Squad of the Nassau County Police Department has resulted in the arrest of a Florida nurse on temporary assignment at Mercy Medical Center in Rockville Centre. 

Phaedra J. White, 41, has been arrested and charged with stealing narcotics – including powerful painkillers – from the hospital.  The charges also allege that the defendant falsified hospital records to cover her thefts.

The charges include six counts of Criminal Possession of a Controlled Substance in the Seventh Degree, six counts of Falsifying Business Records in the First Degree, and six counts of Willful Violation of Health Laws, and six counts of petit larceny.

Ms. White, a Registered Nurse from St. Petersburg, Florida, will be arraigned on the charges this morning in First District Court, Hempstead.  She faces a maximum of a year in jail on the drug charges and health law charges and up to four years in prison on the charge of falsifying hospital documents.

The defendant, who was on temporary assignment at the hospital from a nurse staffing agency, worked in the Emergency Department for approximately four months beginning in June 2006. 

According to Rice, the investigation began when the hospital noted questionable entries in the emergency department Pyxis machine, a locked and secure cabinet which contains a facility’s controlled substances.  The facility internal investigation and audit revealed that more than 800 doses of narcotics – including painkillers Morphine, Meperidine, and Hydromorphone – were removed from the machine, unauthorized, by the defendant.  To cover up these withdrawals and keep inventory records from raising suspicions, Ms. White documented in hospital records that the narcotics taken were ordered by physicians, and that they were to be administered to specific patients.  In fact, there were no such orders for these patients. 

Rice praised the work of the Nassau County Police Department’s Narcotics/Vice Squad, and reminds everyone that her office and the police department are aggressive in investigating and prosecuting violations of the public trust by health care professionals.

“Our community places a great deal of trust in our health care professionals,” said Rice.  “That trust is what makes this type of arrest so disturbing.  A breach of that trust compromises both the quality of care, specifically, as well as the entire health care delivery system as a whole.  This arrest shows that someone who commits a crime from this position of trust in Nassau County will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”

Rice and Nassau County Police Commissioner Lawrence W. Mulvey thanked the administration and staff of Mercy Medical Center for their assistance and cooperation during the investigation of this matter. 

Rice noted that the matter has been referred to the New York State Department of Health, Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement, as well as to the New York State Education Department, Office of the Professions, for a review of Ms. White’s nurse status.

Assistant District Attorney Michael C. Clarke, Chief of the District Attorney’s Medicaid Fraud Unit, is prosecuting the case.  The investigation was conducted by Detective David F. Twomey of the Nassau County Police Department, Narcotics/Vice Squad.  Ms. White is being represented by Gregory Flynn, Esq., of Syracuse.