She is accused of withdrawing narcotics from vials with a needle and then refilling with saline solution
A former registered nurse will be arraigned next week in U.S. District Court on charges of stealing narcotics from hospitals and using the drugs herself.
Sarah Jean Moses, also known as Sarah Nalvanko, 41, of Cedar Rapids, was indicted last month on two counts of tampering and attempting to tamper with hydromorphone, an opioid medication, and three counts of acquiring and attempting to acquire a controlled substance by misrepresentation, fraud, deception or subterfuge.
Moses, as a registered nurse with a Cedar Rapids hospital, diverted the opioids from Sept. 6 to Oct. 12, 2017, and used the drugs herself, according to the indictment. She used her own fingerprint and/or pass code to obtain the drugs from a dispensing machine.
She is accused of puncturing vials of hydromorphone with needles to withdraw the drug and then refilling the vials with a saline solution to make them appear to be full, the indictment states.
Moses, as a home health care nurse from Feb. 12 to March 16, 2018, provided care to an elderly resident who was living in a Marion assisted living facility. While there, she offered to pick up his refill of oxycodone, an opioid, at a local pharmacy and kept the 56 pain pills herself, according to the indictment.
The court documents don’t identify the hospital or assisted living residence where Moses was employed.
In Iowa Board of Nursing documents filed in April 2019, hospital officials said their investigation found Moses, on at least one occasion, was the only one to access the narcotic in question.
When her employer asked her to submit a urine sample for testing, Moses admitted to taking the narcotic not prescribed to her, according to the board documents.
The board included another incident when Moses diverted narcotics while working at a different hospital, also not identified, from Sept. 10 through Nov. 22, 2018. At that hospital, Moses is accused of removing medications from patients she wasn’t assigned, failing to account for those removed and failing to document pain assessments, the board stated.
In April 2019, the board indefinitely suspended Moses’ nursing license pending completion of recommended treatment.
Moses, who was issued her nursing license in 2006, voluntarily surrendered her license in May of last year, according to board documents.
She also was convicted in October 2020 in Linn County District Court for drunken driving, a simple misdemeanor, and ordered to serve 48 hours in jail and pay fines.
Moses had a recent notice of failure to pay her fines and she faces possible suspension of her driver’s license for owing $1,537, according to Linn court records.
Last month, a federal prosecutor asked the court to revoke Moses’ pretrial release because of probation violations, which a judge found she committed, but he didn’t revoke her pretrial release.
Moses will have additional substance abuse evaluation and increased drug testing and monitoring left up to the discretion of the U.S. Probation Office.
Moses also was indicted last month on a separate charge of theft of government funds.
She is accused of falsely reporting her income to receive increased unemployment benefits from April through August of last year, the indictment states. Moses received at least $4,368 because of increased benefits during the coronavirus pandemic.
She will be arraigned Tuesday, Aug. 17, in federal court on both cases.
If convicted, she faces up to 10 years each on the tampering charges and four years on each fraud charge.
Tags: Automated Dispensing Machine Drug Tampering Drug Theft Healthcare Diversion Hydromorphone Opioid Crisis Patient Harm Provider Arrest
