ICU nurse stole fentanyl meant for Florida patients, replaced it with saline, feds say
A 35-year-old nurse working in the intensive care unit of a Florida hospital is facing federal prison time after prosecutors said she diluted syringes of fentanyl with saline.
Monique Elizabeth Carter pleaded guilty to felony charges of tampering with a consumer product in the Middle District of Florida on April 13. Carter, who is from Middleburg, Florida, worked in the neural ICU at Baptist Medical Center in Jacksonville during the time she is accused of stealing the opioid.
Prosecutors said she faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine at sentencing.
A defense attorney representing Carter did not immediately respond to McClatchy News’ request for comment on Thursday, April 14.
In court documents, the government said she admitted to self-medicating to cope with “stress caused by having to care for an injured family member who was a victim of domestic violence.”
A professional discipline process against Carter by the Florida Department of Health is ongoing, and since November, she has been restricted from practicing nursing in any setting where she has access to or is required to administer controlled substances, state health department documents show.
Carter was also charged in Duval County with obtaining a controlled substance via fraud and possession of a controlled substance, The Miami Herald reported.
Those charges were reportedly dropped after she completed a pre-trial intervention program.
According to documents filed with her plea agreement, Carter’s work in the ICU involved treating “critically ill patients with life-threatening neurological problems who require enhanced monitoring and possibly organ support to sustain life.”
Those patients were often prescribed the powerful pain killer fentanyl, prosecutors said.
On Sept. 28, a pharmacist was inspecting the hospital’s fentanyl inventory and noticed one of the tamper-proof caps had been removed from a syringe with “some form of foreign adhesive remaining at the tip,” court filings state. Another syringe reportedly looked like it had been glued back on.
When a supervisor began reviewing records, the government said, they found Carter routinely checked out doses of fentanyl before canceling the transaction and putting the syringe back into storage.
She did so at least 24 times over the course of one month, according to her plea agreement.
Carter was questioned by hospital representatives when she showed up to work on Sept. 29 and she told them she’d been tampering with the syringes to steal fentanyl for use at home, prosecutors said. She said she would replace the stolen fentanyl with saline and glue the caps back on — a trick she’d been using since the summer, court documents state.
The government said she denied ever using fentanyl while at work.
The Jacksonville County Sheriff’s Office questioned Carter later the same day and reportedly found needles, saline syringes and glue in her bag. She told deputies she had a drug problem, prosecutors said.
According to her plea agreement, Carter would have known that her colleagues were unaware some patients had been shortchanged on needed doses of fentanyl, meaning they would be reluctant to give them more to manage pain.
She also knew that failing to anesthetize or control pain in ICU patients can lead to major complications and even death, the government said.
“The defendant is a trained and educated healthcare professional,” prosecutors said. “As such, she knew that her activities likely resulted in critically ill patients receiving diluted fentanyl, which was not safe and effective. She also knew that, having been deprived of sterile, medically-necessary medication, such patients were exposed to possible infection and would endure unnecessary pain and suffering.”
A grand jury indicted Carter on Dec. 2, court documents show. She was arrested Dec. 15 and released on a $5,000 bond.
A sentencing date has not been set.
This story was originally published April 14, 2022 at 5:45 PM with the headline "ICU nurse stole fentanyl meant for Florida patients, replaced it with saline, feds say."
