A nurse from the Chicago suburbs just got a two-year prison sentence for messing with patient meds, yanking morphine from bottles prescribed to manage pain, and switching it up with some mystery liquid for her use, feds say.
Woodstock's own Sarah Diamond, 31, was the Assistant Director of Nursing at a medical rehab center where she was supposed to give out medications to patients, including those knocking on death's door. In the summer of 2021, federal prosecutors say she played a dangerous game, taking morphine meant for at least five patients, and replacing it with some other liquid – patients and their families none the wiser until, in at least one case, they saw a loved one in agony during their final moments.
Diamond, who copped to a federal charge of tampering with a consumer product last year, got her comeuppance Wednesday from U.S. District Judge Manish S. Shah in a Chicago federal court.
The grim tale was laid out by Morris Pasqual, Acting U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, and Ronne Malham, head honcho at the Chicago office of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Office of Criminal Investigations. Crystal Lake cops also pitched in on the case. "Patients deserve to have confidence that they are receiving the legitimately prescribed medication and not a diluted substance," Pasqual said, according to a Justice Department statement. He warned that healthcare frauds who mess with scripts will face the full weight of the law.
SAC Malham backed that up, saying, "Patients suffering from pain trust their health care providers to provide relief through effective and appropriately dosed medications." He promised to keep chasing down those medical pros who betray that trust by tampering with life-saving drugs.
