Nurse Pleads Guilty to Drug Diversion at Multiple Hospitals

A nurse pleaded guilty in federal court in Boston to tampering with patients’ morphine on June 15, 2020, and was subsequently sentenced to a five year federal prison term.

Brianna Duffy, 32, pleaded guilty to one count of tampering with a consumer product and one count of acquiring a controlled substance by fraud or deception. Duffy was indicted in July 2019.

On March 17 and 18, 2019, while working as a registered nurse at Hunt Nursing and Rehab in Danvers, Duffy tampered with morphine sulfate prescribed to an 89-year old hospice patient. In an attempt to avoid detection, she replaced the extracted medication with another liquid, diluting the morphine to just 26% of the prescribed concentration. The hospice patient received the diluted morphine and suffered unnecessary pain.

From December 2016 until July 2017, while working as a registered nurse at Maplewood Care and Rehabilitation Center in Amesbury, Duffy diverted morphine from two bottles that were prescribed to a 68-year old patient. Duffy removed morphine from the bottles and diluted the remaining morphine with another liquid, leaving only 1.2%-2.5% of the declared concentration of morphine. Duffy tested positive for morphine on July 18, 2017.

Brianna Duffy was supposed to start serving a five-year federal prison term in January 2020 for diluting the pain medication of at least 16 nursing home patients at a half-dozen facilities.

But on November 5, 2020, the 32-year-old registered nurse was ordered to start serving her term immediately after admitting to violating the terms of a stay of her sentence.

Duffy was granted a stay of her sentence so she could complete a treatment program. But she was arrested in October 2020, just a week after her sentencing in September, and placed into custody at MCI Framingham.

Judge William Young on Thursday did not address the specific nature of the violation, but said during the hearing that it appears Duffy is having difficulty with her ongoing opiate addiction.

Prosecutors asked the judge to order Duffy to start serving her sentence immediately.

Duffy’s attorney, Tom Gleason, said his client would not oppose the request, saying “it’s in her best interest” at this point.

It had been reported that Duffy was sentenced for tampering with medications at two nursing facilities, the Hunt Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Danvers and Maplewood Care and Rehabilitation in Amesbury.

But in a sentencing memorandum filed in the case shortly before Duffy’s sentencing, prosecutors listed six facilities where Duffy worked over a two-year period prior to her arrest last year.

Duffy, prosecutors say, stole morphine from at least 16 patients at those facilities, where she had been placed by two different agencies.

Besides Hunt and Maplewood, which are listed as the victims in the criminal complaint, prosecutors listed four additional healthcare facilities as locations where she also stole morphine by diluting medications:

1. Masconomet Health Care Center in Topsfield,
2. Port Healthcare Center in Newburyport,
3. Hannah Duston Healthcare Center in Haverhill and
4. Roy Wood Mill Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Lawrence

At the same time, Duffy was arrested twice for impaired driving, including after a three-car crash in January 2019, in which another driver was trapped in the wreckage of his vehicle.

Two months later, she was working at Hunt when she stole medication from an 89-year-old patient who was in hospice care.

Prosecutors also say that when questioned, Duffy denied any role in tampering and refused to help identify other bottles she may have diluted.

Prosecutors called Duffy a “nurse who delivered pain instead of care.”

“She allowed her desire for morphine to overtake her duty to her patients, depriving dying patients of morphine to feed her own cravings,” prosecutors

Elysa Wan and Patrick Callahan wrote in their sentencing memorandum. “While she is not unique, Duffy’s conduct stands out amongst other tampering defendants for its extent and callousness.”

Gleason’s sentencing memorandum was filed under seal and is not available. During her sentencing hearing, Young alluded to Duffy’s physical and mental health issues and an ongoing issue with addiction.

Young’s sentence was 10 months shy of what prosecutors were asking. During the sentencing hearing, Young told her that she had “perverted” whatever goal she had in becoming a registered nurse.

“Simply put, the crimes that you have committed are appalling,” said Young, according to a transcript of the sentencing. “They’re exactly the opposite of helping people, they’re taking heavy medication properly prescribed for someone in pain, unremitting pain, taking that medication away or potentially taking it away from people who desperately need it.”

Duffy’s nursing license was suspended earlier this year as a result of the charges.