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A former registered nurse anesthetist at the Veterans Administration hospital in Madison has been sentenced to three years probation for stealing fentanyl from the hospital.
Todd Mehrhoff, 49, of Waunakee, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge James Peterson in federal court in Madison on Tuesday.
He pleaded guilty in November to charges of obtaining fentanyl by use of misrepresentation and fraud.
From August to December in 2017, Mehrhoff took fentanyl from a Med-Select automatic dispensing cabinet over 100 times, for his own personal use.
He had access to the dispensing equipment in his work at the hospital, primarily participating in surgeries.
On Dec. 19, 2017, a fentanyl syringe was found left on a medical cart, with an investigation determining Mehrhoff had removed fentanyl from the dispenser earlier in the day and didn’t report it had either been administered or destroyed.
Investigators said he took fentanyl for his own use in situations when he was not on duty, for patients he wasn’t assigned to, on days when no surgeries were scheduled and in amounts greater than typically used for operations.