Charges have been filed against several Sulphur nursing home employees for illegally obtaining and diverting prescription medication. Mark Woodward, Spokesman for the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics says the charges stem from a joint investigation that began in January, 2012 involving OBN, the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office, the Sulphur Police Department, and the Murray County Sheriff’s Department.
“During an audit, information surfaced that over 9,000 dosage units of controlled substances had been diverted by employees of the Callaway Nursing home in Sulphur. Over 8,400 of the dosage units involved the pain medication Hydrocodone.”
Woodward says employees would use their position of phoning legitimate prescriptions authorized by doctors to call in fraudulent prescriptions of Hydrocodone for residents of the nursing home.
“These residents had not been prescribed the Hydrocodone by doctors. There is no evidence that any resident was deprived of their legitimate medications. Evidence suggests some of the employees would personally use small amounts of the diverted medication, but the majority of the fraudulent drugs were sold on the streets of Sulphur.”
OBN Director Darrell Weaver says it is a tragedy that people will use their official capacity to defraud the system and obtain pain medication.
“I am very pleased that law enforcement in the Sulphur area united to put a halt to such a troubling diversion scheme. These folks where making economic gain by selling illegally obtained prescription pain medicines on the streets of Murray County. We must continue to send a message that this type of activity will not be tolerated and we will aggressively work to prosecute those involved.”
The Murray County District Attorney’s Office has filed charges against six individuals. Warrants were issued for Jackie Allen Alexander, 63, Director of Nursing at Callaway for Conspiracy to Obtain Controlled Substances by Fraud; Melanie A. Kirby, 39, Assistant Director of Nursing for Callaway, for Conspiracy to Obtain Controlled Substances by Fraud; Carrie Billings, 41, for Conspiracy to Obtain Controlled Substances and Medicaid Fraud; Sierra D. Williams, 23, for Conspiracy to Obtain Controlled Substances by Fraud and Medi