CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A Pike County travel nurse has learned her fate after pleading guilty to charges related to stealing drugs from a hospital where she worked.

Jacqueline Brewster, 55, of Belfry, pleaded guilty in December to obtaining a controlled substance by fraud and wrongful disclosure of patient health information.

The charges stem from Brewster’s employment at Raleigh General Hospital, in Beckley, W.Va. In her plea agreement, she admitted to using patient information to access vials of hydromorphone from an automated prescription dispensing machine.

In her plea agreement, she would siphon off a portion of the drug from each vial for her own use, then add another substance to the vial to make it appear full and use adhesive to reattach its cap to make it appear unopened. She would then return the adulterated vials to the machine and cancel the prescription.

Brewster was originally scheduled to be sentenced back in May, but failed to show up for court. Her attorney explained that she doesn’t have a car and the friend she had asked to take her to court didn’t show up, leaving her without a way to court.

When Brewster appeared in U.S. District Court in Charleston on Thursday, the judge imposed a tougher sentence than guidelines recommended. While sentencing guidelines would have placed her in prison for 4-to-10 months, Chief U.S. District Judge Frank W. Volk determined that her conduct warranted a stiffer sentence and instead ordered her to spend five years in prison.

Brewster is also banned from nursing in West Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee.