A Milwaukee woman is accused of stealing prescription pain pills from her employer and selling them to a confidential informant numerous times.
Mariana Cooper, 31, was charged by the Racine County District Attorney’s Office with four felony counts of conspiracy to commit delivery of schedule I or II narcotics. If convicted of all charges, Cooper faces up to 60 years in prison and/or fines up to $200,000.
Cooper is being held in the Racine County Jail on a $5,000 cash bond.
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According to the criminal complaint, over the course of several months, Cooper stole opiate pills from her employer, Milwaukee-based Birchwood Health Rehabilitation. A confidential informant told officials with the Racine County Sheriff’s Department Metro Drug Unit that Cooper “‘weaken’s patients’ dosages to get the pills and sometimes the pills are just” left sitting out.
In October, an agent with the Metro Drug Unit worked with the Drug Enforcement Agency to arrange a drug buy from Cooper. The agent had the informant call Cooper to set up the drug buy in Milwaukee with the understanding that the pills would be sold to people in Racine County.
When Cooper met with the informant, she sold the informant 60 pills of oxycodone, a narcotic pain medication.
“Cooper told the CI that she had plenty more available and the CI said that hopefully next week — after selling these pills — the CI would purchase more from Cooper,” the complaint reads.
She sold the informant more pills on Nov. 3, Nov. 17, and Dec. 15.
During one of the buys, Cooper told the informant that a co-worker had been “softening” the patients’ prescriptions and that co-worker “destroyed at least $5,000 and $6,000 worth of pills.” In another meeting, she told the informant that her employer “(expletive) up big time. My mom said they put in a wrong order for these. No one signed for it. That’s how I got this. No one recorded anything. My mom told me to come to work now to get these.”
Agents with the Racine County Metro Drug Unit executed a search warrant Jan. 16 on Cooper’s home. She told the agents that the oxycodone and morphine pills would be sitting on her desk at work and that she would take the pills to sell them. She denied shorting patients’ prescriptions or stealing from the patients.
Racine County Court Commissioner Alice Rudebusch set a preliminary hearing for 8:30 a.m. Feb. 14 in Racine County Felony Court.