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Description: Burlington, Vermont criminal law lawyer represented Defendant charged with knowingly acquiring and possessing hydromorphone tablets and solutions by fraud and deception in violation of 21 U.S.C. 842(a)(3).
While employed as a pharmacy manager of the CVS located in Berlin, Vermont, Brian Thomas Badgley, age 37, of Waterbury, Vermont, tampered with a bottle of Hydromorphone oral solution by removing a quantity for his own use, and then diluting the remaining contents of the bottle with liquid Benadryl and distilled water. Badgley then reattached the tamper seal on the bottle with clear tape and returned the diluted Hydromorphone oral solution to the inventory of the pharmacy, from which it could have been administered to pharmacy patients. Badgley also obtained Hydromorphone tablets and Hydromorphone solution through misrepresentations and fraud, specifically by entering false entries into the pharmacy ordering system, entering false pill counts into the inventory system, and diluting the oral solution.
According to court records and the public records of various state boards of pharmacy, Badgley stole hydromorphone tablets in 2015 as an employee of a pharmacy in Texas, and stole hydromorphone tablets in 2016 from a Vermont hospital at which he had been previously employed. These prior instances resulted in the State of Vermont’s Board of Pharmacy placing strict conditions on his license to practice pharmacy. Badgley’s license was fully reinstated in 2020, and then suspended on September 24, 2021 when the Board became aware of the new allegations of tampering and obtaining controlled substances by fraud.
United States Attorney Nikolas P. Kerest commended the investigatory efforts of the U.S. Food & Drug Administration’s Office of Criminal Investigations, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Vermont Secretary of State’s Office of Professional Regulation, and the Berlin Police Department.
Badgley was represented by Robert Sussman, Esq. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan A. Ophardt represented the United States.
21 U.S.C. 843(a)(3) provides:
It shall be unlawful for any person knowingly or intentionally—
(1) who is a registrant to distribute a controlled substance classified in schedule I or II, in the course of his legitimate business, except pursuant to an order or an order form as required by section 828 of this title;
(2) to use in the course of the manufacture, distribution, or dispensing of a controlled substance, or to use for the purpose of acquiring or obtaining a controlled substance, a registration number which is fictitious, revoked, suspended, expired, or issued to another person;
(3) to acquire or obtain possession of a controlled substance by misrepresentation, fraud, forgery, deception, or subterfuge;
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Outcome: Defendant was sentenced to three years of probation.
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