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A 40-year-old Hudson, N.H., woman who worked as a pharmacy technician in Nashua pleaded guilty to stealing one suboxone strip per day for about a year when she worked at the pharmacy and to giving an elderly customer the wrong medication so that she could sell their prescribed Oxycodone, prosecutors announced Tuesday.
Kristina Coleman pleaded guilty to tampering with consumer products and unlawfully obtaining controlled substances, U.S. Attorney for New Hampshire Scott Murray announced via press release.
Prosecutors did not say where in Nashua Coleman worked, but described it as “a retail pharmacy chain.”
She admitted that in January of last year, she agreed to deliver two prescriptions to an elderly patient, even though it was not part of her regular job duties, according to prosecutors. But after Coleman delivered the prescriptions, the customer discovered several of her Oxycodone pills were missing, and that several others had been replaced with larger, slightly different tablets of baclofen, a non-scheduled drug that is meant to be a muscle relaxant and anti-spasmodic agent, according to prosecutors.
“Coleman admitted to law enforcement officers that she replaced some of the oxycodone in the prescription bottle with the baclofen and gave the stolen oxycodone to a friend to sell, for which she received $80,” prosecutors said in a press release.
Coleman also pleaded guilty to stealing Suboxone from the pharmacy for her own use, according to prosecutors.
“Coleman admitted that she had stolen a strip a day for approximately one year,” Prosecutors wrote in a press release.
“Drug diversion and tampering with consumer products are serious crimes that can endanger the lives of patients,” Murray said in a press release. “When criminals steal controlled substances and replace them with other drugs, patients are not only deprived of needed medicine but also may take a drug that they should not be taking. In some circumstances, this can create serious medical risks. In order to protect the health and safety of our citizens, we will not hesitate to pursue federal charges against health care workers who steal drugs from innocent victims.”
Coleman is scheduled to be sentenced in U.S. District Court in Concord on Jan. 28, 2021.
The case was investigated by the Food and Drug Administration Office of Criminal Investigations, the Drug Enforcement Administration Diversion Control Division, and the Nashua Police Department. Assistant U.S. Attorney Charles L. Rombeau is leading the prosecution.