United States Drug Enforcement Administration

SOUTH BEND, Ind. – Alfred A. Cooke, Assistant Special Agent in Charge of U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration-Merrillville, Indiana, and U.S. Attorney Clifford D. Johnson for the Northern District of Indiana announced that Keith Wigfall, 57, of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Damon R. Leichty on...

RALEIGH, N.C. – A former Fuquay-Varina nurse was sentenced today to 48 months in prison and three years of supervised release for tampering with painkillers intended for surgery patients. On March 9, 2022, Melissa Elizabeth Chacona pled guilty to the charges. “Surgical patients trust healthcare providers to give them the...

BOSTON – A former nurse has been indicted by a federal grand jury in Boston for allegedly diverting opioids from a Boston-area hospital. Andrea Falzano, 38, of Winchester, was indicted on three counts of unlawfully obtaining controlled substances by fraud, deception and subterfuge. Falzano was arrested this morning and will...

Spokane - Esther Rae Tuller, age 40, of Moses Lake, Washington, has pleaded guilty to tampering with morphine medication while working as a registered nurse. Chief United States District Judge Stanley A. Bastian accepted Tuller’s guilty plea and scheduled a sentencing hearing for March 17, 2022, in Spokane. According to...

Baltimore, Md., – U.S. District Judge Deborah L. Boardman has approved a consent decree that permanently enjoins Elizabeth J. Allen, a Baltimore-based physician assistant, from prescribing opioids and other controlled substances, resolving the United States’ civil allegations that Allen violated the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) in illegally prescribing opioids. Under...

Greenbelt, Md., – Edwin Kerry Smith, age 43, of Silver Spring, Maryland, pleaded guilty today to possession with intent to distribute a controlled substance and admitted that heroin he distributed to one victim resulted in the victim’s fatal overdose. The guilty plea was announced by Jarod Forget, Special Agent in...

St. Louis, Mo. - Saint Francis Medical Center of Southeast Missouri has agreed to pay more than $1.6 million to settle a civil suit by the United States, resolving claims under the Controlled Substances Act. The U.S. government alleged that Saint Francis employed a Farmington, Missouri, physician, Brett Dickinson, who...

ALEXANDRIA, Va., – A Florida man pleaded guilty today to unlawfully distributing thousands of prescription opioid pills in exchange for over half a million dollars through the “dark web.” According to court documents, between 2012 and 2020, Daren James Reid, 35, of Fort Lauderdale, used the dark web to distribute...