SAN ANTONIO – A San Antonio woman was arrested Monday after she admitted to investigators she stole more than 1,600 pills of various types of painkillers from her employer, an affidavit shows.
The woman, identified as Christina Ann Santos, 29, is being charged with multiple felonies.
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According to an arrest affidavit, Santos was a staff nurse at Healthsouth Rehabilitation Institute of San Antonio where another nurse discovered a discrepancy in the facility’s automated dispensing machines and its Electronic Medical Records system on Nov. 20.
The affidavit states that patients were asking for their medications despite the system showing they had already received them, and that Santos had been using a patient’s name to pull the pills from the machines.
After the findings were sent to the facility’s upper management, it was determined that Santos had been stealing the painkillers over four shifts, according to the affidavit.
A day after the discovery, Santos was confronted about the stolen pills at the hospital where she told management that she was stealing for her sick mother. However, Santos later admitted to stealing them for herself, and she was later fired, according to the affidavit.
The affidavit states that the hospital conducted an inventory where it was revealed that Santos stole a total of 1,658 pills of various painkillers such as 1,092 of hydrocodone, 299 of OxyContin and 66 of codeine.
The hospital filed a police report in January and two months later, the Texas Board of Nursing sent documentation of its findings to the Drug Enforcement Adminstration, the affidavit states.
According to the affidavit, the documentation revealed Santos admitting to stealing the painkillers from Nov. 17-20 for her addiction.
Santos is being charged with four counts of possession of controlled substances and three counts of obtaining drugs through fraud, which are first-second- and third-degree felonies.
Her bond has been set at $50,000.
