Melanie Curry, 30, is a Licensed Practical Nurse who started working at the Fiddler's Green Manor nursing home in Springville roughly six weeks ago. To nursing home management she seemed like a good hire at the time. They did a background check and found no red flags, but what they didn't know was the Wyoming county drug task force was monitoring Curry. When Curry moved from Wyoming county to Springville the drug task force alerted the Erie County Sheriff's Office. "As a result of information they had provided to us we had her under surveillance," says Erie County Sheriff Timothy Howard.
Police say Curry was stealing hydrocodone pills from the nursing home, although both police and nursing home officials say no patients missed any doses of medicine as a result. "We think it was just access she had to the medications," explains Sheriff Howard, "It was an attempt to cover it up by saying it was given to other clients or patients in the nursing home to cover that."
The investigation came to a head when nursing home officials say an undercover officer made contact with Curry and made arrangements to meet for a drug buy right outside Fiddler's Green Manor. "(Officers) actually witnessed the drug sale of about 11 pills in front of the nursing home," says Howard.
Curry is now facing a felony sale of narcotics charge as well as misdemeanors of petit larceny and drug possession. Nursing home officials say they fired her immediately since she was still under her probationary period. Fiddler's Green Manor says this is an isolated incident, they've never had a problem like this before, and patient care is their first priority. Sheriff Howard says his office and the State health department are now doing a thorough review with the nursing home to see if safeguards can be even tighter to prevent this type of thing from happening again.
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