NORFOLK, Va. – A Virginia Beach man pleaded guilty Friday to illegally acquiring over 50,000 dosage units of prescription medications.
According to Raj Parekh, Acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, 40-year-old Justin Feliciano Algoro, a former licensed pharmacy technician at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital, stole a large supply of prescription medications.
Court documents say Algoro had the role of ensuring that the hospital’s controlled substance distribution system, a machine known as an Omnicell, was filled with the correct amounts of various controlled substances.
From April 2018 to October 2019, documents say Agloro stole controlled substances and falsified the Omnicell records to cover his theft. They say he was able to steal a variety of prescription medications, including thousands of prescription opioid pills.
According to court records, the supervising pharmacist and an Omnicell technician found out what Algoro was doing when he was on personal leave from the hospital. They say Agloro avoided camera systems and intercepted daily Omnicell reports. He also removed reports related to cabinets from which he had diverted controlled substances and replaced them with ones from cabinets he had not accessed or from which he had not diverted controlled substances.
Officials say in total, Agloro stole over 50,000 units of controlled substances.
He is scheduled to be sentenced on December 17, facing a maximum penalty of four years in prison.
