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A former manager of the Anne Arundel police crime lab was sentenced to six months in prison Tuesday after she’d pleaded guilty to stealing prescription drugs from drop boxes at district stations for more than two years.

Annette Alchin Box, 49, of Pasadena, sobbed throughout much of Tuesday’s sentencing hearing at Circuit Court, where prosecutors pushed for the six-month sentence.

Assistant State’s Attorney Jason Steinhardt said Box broached “the public trust” in “using (drug drop boxes) as her personal pharmacy.”

In unsuccessfully arguing for a sentence of just probation, Box’s attorney, Peter O’Neill, made the case that Box was someone without a criminal record who saw issues come to a head. He added the department was aware she was having severe issues and called them “complicit” in allowing them to continue.

O’Neill said Box was prescribed oxycodone following an auto accident in 2012 that left her with significant back and neck pain.

He said her issues with prescription opioids were evident during her time at the department, where she was a supervisor of its drug lab since 2012.

O’Neill said her subordinates told her superior several times about her inability to focus at work, describing her as so drowsy she couldn’t perform regular tasks.

Anne Arundel police spokesman Lt. Ryan Frashure said there was no indication that either Box or her subordinates approached anyone in the department about her addiction issue. He said there was also no evidence she was unable to perform work.

However, O’Neill said it reached the point where the county’s Crisis Response Team — which responds to crises created by everything from opioid overdoses to situations predicated by mental illness — was called to the department to consult with Box. Frashure said he did not know whether the team had been called out for Box.

She was never asked to take a leave of absence, he said.

“This was a situation where there was wide evidence there was a problem in Ms. Box’s life,” O’Neill said.

Police did not immediately respond to calls for comment.

In handing down the sentence, Judge Michele Jaklitsch said she “did not see very much appreciation for” the effect her actions had on the public’s trust in its police force.

Steinhardt said a letter from Box to the judge placed most of the blame not on herself but on her ex-husband, the police department and the doctor who prescribed the oxycodone.

In reading from a psychological report, she said Box “had a lack of being completely forthright,” which she added “appears to be a common thread.”