Hospital intern arrested for forging prescriptions; wife also charged
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IDAHO FALLS — Police say an intern forged stolen prescriptions from Madison Memorial Hospital to get hydrocodone.
Nicholas Sherman, 29, has been charged with six felony charges of obtaining a controlled substance by deception, misrepresentation, fraud or forgery. He also has six felony charges of burglary. Sherman is being held in the Bonneville County Jail on a $75,000 bond.
According to court records, Sherman was enrolled in the paramedic program at Brigham Young University-Idaho. While in the program, he interned at Madison Memorial Hospital in Aug. and Dec. 2015.
In January 2016, Nathan Hancock, a physician at Madison Memorial Hospital, received a call from a pharmacy in Oklahoma asking him to verify a prescription he appeared to have written.
Hancock told the pharmacy he had not authorized the prescription, and it was likely fraudulent, court records show. Within hours, three other pharmacies contacted Hancock to verify prescriptions.
Hancock then accessed an Idaho registry used to track written prescriptions and discovered multiple fraudulent prescriptions written for Sherman and his wife, Lexie.
The fraudulent prescriptions written by Sherman were done so during the time frame of his internship at Madison Memorial, court records show.
Hancock reported the alleged fraud to the Drug Enforcement Administration and local police.
According to court records, investigators contacted Allen Bower, the nursing director at Madison Memorial, to learn exactly how many prescription sheets were stolen. Bower told police there was no way of knowing if the entire prescription pad was taken or only part of it. Bower said doctors leave the pads out, so Nicholas Sherman would have had access to them at any time.
Search warrants for pharmacy records at Walgreens and Albertsons show Lexie Sherman had picked up prescriptions with the doctor’s forged signature. She picked up prescriptions twice at the Rexburg Albertsons and three times at the Ammon Walgreens. It is unclear from court documents whether the prescriptions were for her or her husband.
The warrants also revealed Nicholas Sherman had picked up three fraudulent prescriptions at the Ammon Walgreens.
All the prescriptions were for hydrocodone and had Hancock’s forged signature.
“I did not write the prescriptions,” Lexie Sherman told EastIdahoNews.com during a phone interview. “I really didn’t know they were stolen.”
Hours after our phone interview, she was arrested on a Bonneville County warrant for four felonies — two for burglary and two for possession of a controlled substance.
Rexburg Police Capt. Randy Lewis said an arrest warrant for Lexie Sherman was also issued out of Madison County. The warrant is for two felony counts of fraudulently obtaining a controlled substance. The warrant carries a $50,000 bond. Before her arrest, she told EastIdahoNews.com she was working with an attorney to get the warrants sorted out.
On Jan. 9, Nicholas Sherman pleaded guilty to a felony charge of attempting to obtain a controlled or dangerous substance by fraud in Oklahoma City. He received a three-year deferred sentence and was ordered to pay various fines and complete 40 hours of community service.
He has a preliminary hearing in Bonneville County scheduled for later this month.
Lexie Sherman is being held without bond until she makes her first court appearance Thursday afternoon.