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  5. November 30, 2017: Paramedic Sentenced for Stealing Fentanyl from Ambulance Company
  1. Press Releases

November 30, 2017: Paramedic Sentenced for Stealing Fentanyl from Ambulance Company

   

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Food and Drug Administration 
Office of Criminal Investigations

 


 
 

             U.S. Department of Justice Press Release

 

  

For Immediate Release
November 30, 2017

United States Department of Justice

District of Massachusetts 

BOSTON – A paramedic was sentenced today in federal court in Boston for diverting fentanyl intended for patients for his own use and for extracting fentanyl from vials stocked on ambulances and replacing the fentanyl with saline.

Joseph V. Amello, 50, of Rowley, Mass., was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Douglas P. Woodlock to 30 months in prison and three years of supervised release.  In June 2017, Amello pleaded guilty to one count of acquiring a controlled substance by deception, fraud, and forgery, and one count of tampering with a consumer product.

 

 

From approximately November 2014 to August 2015, while working as a paramedic for an ambulance company, Amello stole over 650 5-ml vials of fentanyl for his own use.  In addition, beginning around July 1, 2015, Amello removed fentanyl from a number of vials intended for ambulance patients and replaced the fentanyl with saline.

 

 

Acting United States Attorney William D. Weinreb; Jeffrey Ebersole, Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Office of Criminal Investigations, New York Field Office; and Commissioner Monica Bharel, M.D., M.P.H., of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, Division of Food and Drugs, Drug Control Program, made the announcement today. Assistant U.S. Attorney Miranda Hooker of Weinreb’s Narcotics and Money Laundering Unit prosecuted the case. 

Topic(s): 

Prescription Drugs

Consumer Protection

Component(s): 

USAO - Massachusetts

 

 

 

 

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