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Former Nurse Pleads Guilty to Tampering with Pain Medication

By Tom Marino | January 28, 2021
Last Updated: March 23, 2021

Mark Croft, 48, a former nurse of West Boylston, pleaded guilty in federal court on Thursday, January 28, to tampering with opioids intended for emergency department patients and then attempting to conceal his crime by replacing the diverted narcotics with saline.

Croft pleaded guilty to one count of tampering with a consumer product and one count of acquiring a controlled substance by deception and subterfuge.

Croft worked for a Massachusetts hospital in January 2016 and administered hydromorphone and meperidine to emergency patients for pain relief.

The charges against Croft claim that between January 6 and January 14, 2016, he used his credentials to access the automated dispensing machine in the hospital’s emergency department and used syringes to remove hydromorphone and meperidine for his own use.

Croft replaced the medication he removed with saline to conceal his conduct. To avoid detection, Croft later put the syringes with the diluted medication back in the ADM where they remained available for administration to other patients.

Croft also used his credentials to enter a “return to stock” transactions in the ADM, making it falsely appear that medications were not removed.

Croft faces up to 10 years in prison for Tampering with a Consumer Product and up to four years for obtaining a controlled substance by misrepresentation, fraud, deception and subterfuge.

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