This post was originally published on this site

A Keedysville woman who stole more than 21,000 oxycodone pills while working at Boonsboro Pharmacy was sentenced Monday to four years in state prison.

Gabrielle Benson, 24, pleaded guilty in April to conspiracy to possess oxycodone with intent to distribute.

On Monday, Washington County Circuit Court Judge Daniel P. Dwyer sentenced her to eight years in prison with four years suspended, rejecting defense attorney John Salvatore’s request that she receive a county jail sentence or a suspended sentence.

Assistant State’s Attorney Brendan Flynn asked Dwyer to sentence Benson, a first-time offender, to prison “based on just the sheer amount of pills taken.”

Flynn asked the judge to order Benson to have no contact with co-defendant Dale Andrew Weaver because they “are not good for each other.”

Weaver, 28, had lived with Benson. He pleaded guilty in June to conspiracy to possess oxycodone and is scheduled for sentencing on Oct. 8.

Benson was an employee at Boonsboro Pharmacy and stole the prescription painkillers from the business between October 2017 and September 2018.

Weaver was aware of the thefts and was using some of the stolen drugs, Flynn said at Weaver’s plea hearing in June.

“She did it because she had an addiction,” Salvatore told Dwyer on Monday, telling the judge she would be “a perfect candidate” for the county’s Adult Court program, getting drug treatment and supervision as opposed to a prison sentence.

Salvatore said Benson, who was in drug treatment programs after she was indicted last year, was not charged with distribution of the drugs.

“What she needs is continued treatment,”Salvatore said.

At a bond hearing for Weaver last year, Deputy State’s Attorney Gina Cirincion said the pill thefts were discovered through an audit. Some of the pills were being sold, she said at that hearing.

Benson told Dwyer she felt ashamed of what she was doing, “but I didn’t know how to stop.”

Dwyer spoke about the thousands of pills that Benson and Weaver did not take and where they might have ended up.

“The consequences of your actions are far more devastating” than just the theft of the pills, Dwyer said. The pills might have been used by addicts here and in other states, with possibly fatal consequences.

Dwyer said he would “keep an open mind” about modifying the sentence to long-term drug treatment in the future.