Michael Langlois, Tampering with Liquid Morphine, Massachusetts 2019

A former nurse in Massachusetts has been sentenced for tampering with liquid morphine intended for hospice patients. Michael Langlois, 50, of Dracut, was sentenced by U.S. Senior District Court Judge Mark L. Wolf to 42 months in prison and three years of supervised release.

Langlois pleaded guilty in May 2019 to one count of tampering with a consumer product and one count of acquiring a controlled substance by deception and subterfuge. The crimes occurred in November 2016 and April 2017.

According to the investigation, Langlois tampered with bottles of liquid morphine that doctors had prescribed for two elderly hospice patients under his care at a Lowell nursing home. He took the liquid morphine for his own use and then replaced it with saline or Benadryl in an attempt to cover up his crime.

As a result of his conduct, the patients in Langlois’s care received a less potent dose of the painkiller than they had been prescribed.

Langlois also diverted liquid morphine from a bottle prescribed to an elderly hospice patient under his care at a Melrose nursing home. To conceal his wrongful conduct, Langlois falsely represented in the medical file of one of his patients that the liquid morphine for that patient was pure, when that was not in fact the case.

Acting United States Attorney Nathaniel R. Mendell said, ‘The idea of taking desperately needed medication from a patient facing the last days and hours of life is horrifying and obviously violates legal and ethical duties.’

Langlois’s sentencing is a strong reminder that healthcare professionals who steal needed medications from patients put patients at increased risk of harm and disrupt the legal drug supply chain.

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