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.

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BECKLEY, W.Va. — A Pike County travel nurse who has been under investigation for the past two years has now been indicted on federal drug charges.

Jacqueline Brewster, 54, of Belfry, has been charged in U.S. District Court in Beckley, W.Va., with obtaining controlled substances by fraud, tampering with consumer products, and wrongfully obtaining individually identifiable health information under false pretenses.

Federal officials say Brewster used her credentials as an LPN to determine which patients had been prescribed hydromorphone, also known by the brand name Dilaudid, while she was working at Raleigh General Hospital, in Beckley. She is accused of then accessing the patient vials and diverting some of the drug for her own use, then refiling them with a clear substance to make them appear full.

Brewster is one of 193 defendants recently charged as part of a National Health Care Fraud Enforcement Action announced last week by the U.S. Department of Justice. That action has also included the recent indictments of former Paintsville doctor Don Bryson and Chapmanville doctor Brian McDevitt.

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