Former Asante nurse arrested in alleged drug diversion case – Ashland News

Dani Marie Schofield, 36, faces 44 counts of second-degree assault after allegedly replacing patients' intravenous painkiller with tap water.

By Buffy Pollock, Rogue Valley Times

Medford police announced Thursday they arrested Dani Marie Schofield, 36, a former nurse at Asante Rogue Regional Medical Center, at the center of a massive drug diversion case involving alleged harm to dozens of patients.

Police said they arrested Schofield around 12:30 a.m. Thursday in the 5000 block of Rogue River Drive in Eagle Point. She is incarcerated in the Jackson County Jail and is expected to be arraigned Friday, according to the Jackson County Prosecutor's Office.

Schofield, who was indicted Wednesday by a grand jury, faces 44 counts of second-degree assault under Measure 11, according to a news release from the Medford Police Department.

She allegedly committed the alleged assaults between July 25, 2022 and July 25, 2023, the statement said.

Court documents show Jackson County Circuit Court Judge Laura Cromwell set bail at $4.4 million.

Schofield's arrest is a major development in an investigation that began in December 2023 when Asante officials contacted police.

In a memo to Asante employees obtained by the Rogue Valley Times, hospital President and CEO Tom Gessel said, “We have received information from law enforcement regarding the indictment and the he arrest of a former employee of Rogue Regional Medical Center. As the Medford Police Department noted in its release, this individual was arrested on 44 counts of Assault 2, a serious felony, for stealing fentanyl and placing tap water in IV bags of patients.

“We thank our law enforcement partners, including the Medford Police Department, for their tireless work since our team brought their concerns to them,” Gessel continued. “We greatly appreciate the countless hours their investigators devoted to this complex case. »

He thanked employees for their “continued work on behalf of our community.”

Medford police turned over the results of the seven-month investigation to the district attorney's office in late April. Chief Deputy District Attorney Patrick Green called it the “biggest case” ever handled by the district attorney’s office. Green was elected in the May primary to succeed retiring Jackson County Prosecutor Beth Heckert.

Thursday's statement said Asante was alerted to the situation at Schofield after the hospital became “concerned about an increasing number of cases of central line infections among patients while they are being treated.” After the hospital conducted an internal investigation, which involved consultation with external medical experts, “Asante provided MPD with information that all identified cases had been isolated from patients in the intensive care unit (ICU ) and occurred within a specific date range,” he said. said the press release.

“MPD investigators made contact with Schofield early on in this investigation. Investigators also spent months reviewing volumes of hospital records and interviewed nearly 100 people in this case, including doctors, nurses, patients and numerous affected individuals,” the statement said. “Due to the magnitude of the case and its impact on the victims, MPD has dedicated several full-time detectives to the investigation.”

At a mid-afternoon news conference Thursday with Medford police officials and the district attorney's office, Police Chief Justin Ivens said, “Our thoughts are with the victims, their families and to everyone who was affected by this investigation. I hope that today's arrest will bring some closure to what they have suffered and gone through.

“Secondly,” the chief continued, “I want to congratulate and thank the investigators, our support staff, our supervisors who worked tirelessly on this complex investigation. »

Asante, he said, has been “a good community partner throughout this investigation” and that the hospital's assistance in this matter was “one of the main reasons we are at this point.” stage of criminal proceedings.

Ivens said several of the victims identified in the investigation have died. However, a review of these cases by medical experts and forensic pathologists determined that “the infections these patients suffered could not be determined to be the cause of death,” but that Schofield's actions, in particular, had ” caused physical harm to patients who were under his control and care,” Ivens said.

At the news conference, Assistant Chief DA Green said the testimony and evidence of 21 witnesses was presented before the grand jury, which met for eight hours, and that the charges against Schofield “represent the highest level of accusation that the evidence in this case can support.”

“In a prosecution for any degree of homicide, whether murder, involuntary manslaughter, or criminally negligent homicide, the State, the prosecution, is required to prove that the acts of the person accused were the cause of the victim's death,” Green said. said.

“Investigators in this case consulted numerous medical experts, all of whom were unanimous that they could not conclude that the patients' deaths were directly attributed to infections, and that's why you don't see any of these accusations.”

The bail amount, Green said, was “representative of the number of charges in this case,” each of which carries a mandatory sentence of five years and 10 months in prison.

Under Oregon law, a person commits second-degree assault, a class B felony, if they:

a) “Intentionally or knowingly causes serious injury to another;

b) “Intentionally or knowingly causes physical harm to another by means of a deadly or dangerous weapon; Or

(c) “Recklessly causes serious bodily injury to another by means of a deadly or dangerous weapon under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life.” »

Police declined to say whether Schofield stole the fentanyl for his personal use or to sell it.

“I'm not going to get into her personal life, but obviously, you know, I don't believe Ms. Schofield probably went into the medical field initially, to do this, by any means,” said Ivens. “So, you know, draw your own conclusions based on that. I think at some point in her work she lost her sense of what she was doing, and that led to this, which is really tragic.

Although neither Asante officials nor Medford police named her publicly until Thursday, Schofield, who lives in Medford, was first identified in a civil suit filed Feb. 26 by Idiart Law Group in Central Point in the name of the estate of 65 years. Horace “Buddy” Wilson.

Wilson died on Feb. 25, 2022 — before the one-year term for the charges — after Schofield allegedly exchanged prescription fentanyl with unsterile tap water administered through Wilson's bloodstream through his central line, according to reports. court documents.

Schofield's registered nursing license was suspended in November and expired in April. Before Idiart filed his case, the Rogue Valley Times interviewed several families who said they were contacted by Asante officials in December and told their loved ones had fallen ill or died after a nurse hospital replaced patients' painkillers with tap water.

One of the victims named in the circuit court filing, released Thursday, is Klamath Falls resident Roberta Porter, 71. Earlier this year, the Times interviewed his son, Shawn Porter, of Phoenix, Arizona. He learned on December 23 that his mother's death following a serious infection was linked to medication misuse by a hospital nurse.

He said his mother was buried for a year before police contacted him. After learning of Schofield's arrest, Shawn Porter told the Times he was frustrated by how long it took.

“That’s what’s been bothering me for a while now, knowing that she was free,” he said, adding, “There’s at least a sigh of relief from her arrest.”

Porter felt the charges should have been “more serious,” even though “the charges match what the detectives told me a few months ago,” he said.

“I wasn’t happy about it then, and I’m not happy about it now.” He said a detective told him: “It was like stabbing someone with a knife… My thought was: If you stab 44 people with a knife and they all die, that's not an attack II. »

Shawn Porter said he would follow Schofield's trial — with the hope, but skepticism, that the former nurse would face more serious charges.

“I'm not thrilled with the charge level,” he said, “but if you get enough of it – even assault, 40 times – I hope she does some serious time.” … It was the first big domino that had been waiting to fall for a long time now.

In addition to Roberta Porter, the victims listed in the court filing, released Thursday, are: Seth Pine, Duane Goodman, Alice Johnson, Mark Caldwell, Patrick Lewallen, Gary Marshall, Andrew Amaya, Donald Patterson, Joy Manzo, Samuel Allison, Michelle Wood. , Kermit Miranda, Michael Read, Douglas Young, Lucien Allen, Marty Bolin, Zachariah Roberts, Justine Siemens, Kerrie Danielson, Jon Meade, Candi Palomares, Herman Shepherd, Rebecca Olson, James Geear, Allan Kisee, Jeffrey Isenhart, Kelly Moore, Amanda Carvin-Pitluck, Robin Bartlett, Rebecca Rogers, Maureen Schroeder, Jared Phipps, Bronson Pickett, Jeffery Morton, Devin Kent, Royce Mayo, Daniel Clark, Ronald Sizemore, Lindsey Moyer, Thomas Weasel, Linda Becker, Barry Samsten and Marlene Murphy.

Contact reporter Buffy Pollock at 458-488-2029 or [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @orwritergal. This story first appeared in Rogue Valley Weather.