BROCKWAY BOROUGH, Pa. (EYT) – A Brookville woman who reportedly stole narcotics from the personal care home where she was employed is scheduled to stand for a hearing in court on Tuesday.
Court documents indicate 36-year-old Tessa Leigh Miner is scheduled to stand for a preliminary hearing in front of Magisterial District Judge David B. Inzana at 1:00 p.m. on Tuesday, September 29.
She faces the following charges:
– Theft By Unlawful Taking-Movable Property, Misdemeanor 3 (four counts)
– Possession of Controlled Substance, Misdemeanor (four counts)
She remains free on $5,000.00 unsecured bail.
The charges stem from a Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General investigation into reported theft at a local personal care facility.
Details of the case:
According to a criminal complaint, on January 14, 2020, the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General (OAG) Acting Supervisory Narcotic Agent (ASNA) and another Narcotics Agent met with two known employees of a personal care and skilled nursing facility located in Brockway.
The complaint notes that prior to the meeting, the ASNA received information that Tessa Leigh Miner, a former employee of the facility, had illegally diverted narcotics from the facility.
The Initial Investigation
According to the complaint, the employees reported they were first alerted to a problem when a nurse reported that Miner was not following the proper protocol for dispensing controlled narcotic medication to patients. It was reported that Miner was witnessed forging another nurse’s signature on a controlled drug record (CDR) for a patient. The witnessing employee reported she observed Miner withdrawing an additional amount of ABH gel, .5 milligram, medication for the patient without a doctor’s approval or supervision.
The complaint notes ABH gel, a schedule IV controlled substance, is a topical gel made from a combination of lorazepam, diphenhydramine, and haloperidol that is typically applied to the surface of a patient’s wrist, back, or chest.
The patient in question was prescribed one milliliter of ABH gel to be applied no more than once every eight hours as needed.
According to the complaint, the nurse whose signature Miner allegedly used was interviewed and asked if she had given permission to Miner to sign her name. The nurse stated she did not give Miner permission to sign her name and was not aware that she had until she was questioned about it.
An internal investigation was then conducted during which Miner was questioned.
According to the complaint, Miner stated the nurse whose name she signed knew she did so and gave her permission to do so. She also stated she had never taken any medications and that all of the medications that she “pulled,” she administered to patients. She also agreed to submit to a urine drug test and reported she was currently prescribed several medications. Miner then provided several pill bottles from her purse and wrote out a list of the medications.
The complaint states the drug test, which Miner took on October 2, 2019, showed positive results for cocaine, oxycodone, oxymorphone, hydrocodone, and hydromorphone, all of which are schedule II controlled substances.
On January 9, the Narcotics Agent ran Miner through the Pennsylvania Prescription Drug Monitoring program (PDMP) for all schedule II controlled substances that were prescribed to her from January 9, 2019, through January 9, 2020. The PDMP report showed that Miner was not prescribed any schedule II controlled substances within an eight-month period prior to the date the drug test was given, the complaint indicates.
Interviews With Employees
On January 28, 2020, investigators interviewed the employee who made the initial report about Miner.
The employee told investigators on September 28, 2019, Miner approached her and stated that a patient said her pain medication was not working and requested more, referring to the ABH gel. Miner then told the employee she was going to issue more medicine to the patient, even though the patient had received her medication fairly recently, according to the complaint.
The employee reported Miner said she did not want to notify a doctor to get approval, so she was “just going to do it” and sign the CDR that it was withdrawn and wasted. Miner stated that she could not sign the CDR because she was not actually working at the time and said she was just going to sign the other nurse’s name. She told the employee the other nurse knew what she was doing and was “okay with it,” the complaint states.
The employee then witnessed Miner signing the other nurse’s name and signed after it, indicating that the ABH gel was pulled and then wasted/destroyed.
The employee explained that if a medication was “pulled” by mistake or was deemed not needed, it would be destroyed, and said the proper process is two nurses need to sign the CDR acknowledging that two people witnessed the drug being destroyed. She also noted there is a proper protocol to destroy any medication wasted.
The employee said Miner then put on a rubber glove and squeezed the ABH gel into her hand and walked away. She noted she did not see Miner administrate the gel to the patient and was not sure if the medicine was administered or wasted, according to the complaint.
Miner was the employee’s supervisor at the time of the incident.
The CDR for the patient in question was provided to investigators by the facility staff.
The complaint states a review of the CDR shows that on September 29, 2019, at 1:00 p.m. the patient was given one milliliter of ABH gel by the nurse. The nurse signed off on the CDR and also entered it on the patient’s electric medical activity report (eMAR). Directly below that notation on the CDR was the entry that Miner reportedly made, dated September 29, 2019, and time-stamped 1:00 p.m. indicating that one milliliter of ABH gel was withdrawn at that time. The CDR has two signatures associated with the entry, one belonging to the same nurse, and the second belonging to the employee who made the initial report about Miner.
On February 27, 2020, the nurse whose signature appeared on the CDR was interviewed by investigators.
According to the complaint, the nurse stated she did not give Miner permission to sign her name on the CDR in question and was not aware that Miner had signed her name at the time of the incident. When showed the CDR, she said the signature was definitely not hers.
Interview With Miner
Miner was interviewed by the investigators on February 25, 2020, with her attorney present.
The complaint states her attorney started the interview by stating Miner had confessed to him that she had been stealing narcotic medication from the facility from around June or July of 2019.
During the interview, Miner stated she utilized many different ways to divert narcotics, one of which was manipulating the CDR sheets to make it look like certain medication she pulled was destroyed, but instead, she would take the medication herself. She told the investigators she would withdraw a narcotic medication, then tell another nurse that she had mistakenly pulled the medication and needed to waste it and have the other nurse sign off on the CDR next to her signature, acknowledging that the other nurse observed her wasting the medication. However, she would never waste it and would keep it for herself, according to the complaint.
Miner also told the investigators that she would hand out narcotic medicines to patients that had a daily prescription for narcotics or PRN (as needed) prescriptions and, when doing so, would often withdraw two pain pills, but only give the patient one, and would keep the other, the complaint states.
When shown another patient’s CDR and asked about a particular date and dose, Miner stated she had withdrawn two of the same pill for the patient at the same time and signed for them both, but had kept one for herself. She was then asked why her signature and handwriting was different and almost unreadable on the CDR’s, and she reportedly stated she did that in order to try to disguise her double withdraws of narcotics or any withdraw that she was trying to hide to keep the medication, the complaint continues.
The Findings
Based on the statements and admissions Miner made during her interview and a later examination of the other patient files provided by the facility, the investigator found other incidents matching the pattern that Miner had described, according to the complaint.
On September 27, 2019, another patient’s CDR indicated there were two oxycodone 5 MG tablets withdrawn at the same time, and both were signed for by Miner.
On September 29, 2019, the same patient’s CDR showed that there were three withdraws of oxycodone 5 MG tablets that day, and only two were entered in the patient’s eMAR. The two entered on the eMAR were made by another nurse, while the one not entered on the eMAR was made by Miner.
On September 30, 2019, a different patient’s CDR indicated there were two oxycodone 10 MG tablets withdrawn at the same time, both signed for by Miner.
Based on the investigation, Miner was arraigned in front of Magisterial District Judge David B. Inzana at 10:00 a.m. on August 26.
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