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Rocky Allen, 28, was sentenced to 6-1/2 years in prison.
A federal judge sentenced former surgical tech Rocky Allen to 6-1/2 years in prison Monday for his theft of a syringe filled with powerful painkillers from Swedish Medical Center in Englewood.
“You got multiple, multiple chances to step away,” U.S. District Judge Raymond Moore told Allen moments before imposing the sentence.
Allen and his lawyer, Timothy O’Hara, an assistant public defender, had sought a sentence of 30 months in prison. O’Hara had argued his client had not actually infected anyone despite a health scare prompted when Swedish warned 2,400 patients to seek medical testing because Allen was HIV positive.
Allen became addicted to drugs to cope with the pain of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder caused by sexual abuse he sustained when he was 3 years old as well as horrors he experienced when he was a surgical tech while deployed as a Navy corpsman in Afghanistan, O’Hara said during the hearing.
“I learned war is horrible,” Allen, dressed in a gray suit, told the judge. “It was a start to a downward spiral to addiction and depression.”
He added: “I was alone on an island only I knew about.”
The judge said that while 30 months was too lenient, the 12-year sentence the prosecution sought also was too harsh.
Moore said Allen had received a military disability following a discharge from the Navy that showed he recognized he struggled with PTSD. He received military benefits that would have allowed him to seek treatment but instead he repeatedly stole drugs from hospitals where he worked, the judge said.
“I don’t believe he gives a damn about people,” the judge added, stressing that Allen had stolen a fentanyl syringe intended for an elderly woman about to undergo surgery. Moore said Allen then went into an operating room while under the influence of fentanyl and marijuana, putting a burn victim he was supposed to tend to at risk.
“The picture of you as a PTSD victim who does not know how to ask for help is a false one,” Moore said when imposing the sentence.
Allen had pleaded guilty to a two-count drug theft indictment related to his theft of a syringe in January while on the job at Swedish. He pleaded guilty to charges of tampering with a consumer product and obtaining a substance by deceit.
Allen was court-martialed in 2011 while enlisted in the Navy and stationed at a hospital in Kandahar, Afghanistan, after he admitted to stealing vials of fentanyl. He was fired from at least five health care facilities in California, Arizona and Washington before Swedish hired him in August 2015. He was able to continue to find jobs in the health care field by lying about his addiction, drug thefts and work history, prosecutors have said in court filings.
Swedish fired him after he was caught swapping out a saline syringe to steal a fentanyl syringe from the hospital.