Jason Peugeot, a La Porte, Texas EMS captain, was charged in May for tampering with a government record, diversion of controlled substances for personal use and diversion of controlled substances for another person's use.
According to a report by Houston ABC affiliate KTRK, La Porte EMS workers were inspecting ambulances in January when they noticed that certain drugs were missing. Sixty bottles of morphine and 163 packages of Fentanyl were unaccounted for. Peugeot's colleagues immediately suspected that he had committed the theft because of his position in the department.
"His role as the captain of the medical inventory was to order and resupply central supply," La Porte EMS Chief Ray Nolan said to the source.
Peugeot's arrest occurred just one week after another Houston area official was accused of stealing narcotics. In Katy, Texas, fire chief Marc Jordan, faces felony charges for allegedly illegally removing drugs from an ambulance, then fabricating a memo to cover it up. According to another report by KTRK, Jordan took vials of Valium and injected them into his cousin's ex-wife. When the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) questioned Jordan about the missing medication, he made up a story.
In a letter attached to the indictment, Jordan wrote, "I inadvertently dropped a box of Diazepam. In an effort to catch the box I jammed the box between my leg and the refrigerator stand breaking the carpuject cartridges. I disposed the broken cartridges."
The district attorney and grand jury were skeptical. If convicted, Jordan could lose his job and be sent to prison.
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