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PIKEVILLE A Salyersville woman was sentenced to 24 months in a federal prison on Tuesday following her conviction for tampering with a controlled substance.
Kelsie Spencer, 25, was sentenced to 24 months in federal prison by United States District Judge Robert Wier, according to a press release sent by Gabrielle Dudgeon, the public affairs specialist with the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
According to Spencer’s plea agreement, while working as a nurse at Paul B. Hall Regional Medical Center, she removed vials of butorphanol tartrate (Stadol) from the drug supply area of the hospital, for her own personal use.
The press release said Spencer then injected a saline solution back into the vials, in order to conceal her criminal activity.
In her plea agreement, Spencer acknowledged that she acted with reckless disregard for the risk that another person would be placed in danger of death or bodily injury, if health care personnel had attempted to utilize these altered drugs on a patient that actually needed them.
Spencer pleaded guilty in July 2019.
Under federal law, Spencer must serve 85% of her prison sentence and will be under the supervision of the U.S. Probation Office for three years.
Robert M. Duncan, Jr., United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Kentucky, Mark S. McCormack, Special Agent in Charge for the Food and Drug Administration (Office of Criminal Investigations) and Commissioner Richard Sanders, Kentucky State Police, jointly announced the sentence.
The investigation was conducted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Office of Criminal Investigations and the Kentucky State Police. The United States was represented by Assistant U.S. Attorneys William S. Dotson and Andrew Trimble.