Former Asante nurse arrested for alleged drug abuse – Ashland News

Dani Marie Schofield, 36, is charged with 44 counts of second-degree assault for allegedly replacing intravenous painkillers with tap water

By Buffy Pollock, Rogue Valley Times

Medford police announced Thursday that they had arrested 36-year-old Dani Marie Schofield, a former nurse at Asante Rogue Regional Medical Center, at the center of a major drug abuse case that allegedly harmed dozens of patients.

Police said they arrested Schofield around 12:30 a.m. Thursday in the 5000 block of Rogue River Drive in Eagle Point. She is being held in the Jackson County Jail and is scheduled to be arraigned Friday, according to the Jackson County District Attorney’s Office.

Schofield, who was indicted by a grand jury on Wednesday, faces 44 counts of second-degree aggravated assault under Measure 11, according to a Medford police news release.

She is said to have committed the alleged assaults between July 25, 2022 and July 25, 2023, the press release states.

According to court documents, Jackson County District Court Judge Laura Cromwell set bail at $4.4 million.

Schofield’s arrest is an important development in an investigation that began in December 2023 when Asante officials contacted the police department.

In a memo to Asante employees obtained by the Rogue Valley Times, hospital president and CEO Tom Gessel said, “We have received notice from law enforcement of the indictment and arrest of a former employee of Rogue Regional Medical Center. As Medford police said in their statement, this individual was arrested on 44 counts of second-degree assault, a felony, for stealing fentanyl and placing tap water in patient IV bags.

“We thank our law enforcement partners, including the Medford Police Department, for their tireless work since our team brought our concerns to their attention,” Gessel continued. “We are very grateful for the countless hours their investigators have spent on this complex matter.”

He thanked the employees for their “continued work on behalf of our community.”

Medford police turned over the results of the seven-month investigation to the district attorney’s office in late April. Assistant District Attorney Patrick Green called it the “biggest case” the district attorney’s office has ever handled. Green was elected in the May primary election to succeed Jackson County District Attorney Beth Heckert, who is retiring.

Thursday’s press release said Asante became aware of the Schofield situation after the hospital became “concerned about an increasing number of cases of central venous catheter infections in patients under their care.” After the hospital conducted an internal investigation that also consulted outside medical experts, Asante “provided MPD with information that all identified cases were limited to patients in the intensive care unit and occurred within a specific time period,” the press release said.

“MPD investigators made contact with Schofield early in this investigation. Investigators also spent months reviewing reams of hospital records and interviewing nearly 100 people in this case, including doctors, nurses, patients and many victims,” ​​the press release said. “Due to the magnitude of the case and its impact on the victims, MPD has assigned several full-time detectives to the investigation.”

At a press conference Thursday afternoon with representatives from the Medford Police Department and the District Attorney’s Office, Police Chief Justin Ivens said, “Our thoughts are with the victims, their families and everyone affected by this investigation. I hope today’s arrest brings them some closure to what they have suffered and gone through.”

“Secondly,” the chief continued, “I would like to express my praise and gratitude to the investigators, our support staff and our supervisors who worked tirelessly on this complex investigation.”

Asante has been “a good partner of the community throughout the investigation” and the hospital’s support in this case is “an important reason why we are at this stage of the criminal proceedings.”

Ivens said several of the victims identified through the investigation died, but a review of those cases by medical experts and forensic pathologists found that “the infections these patients suffered from could not be determined to be the cause of death,” only that Schofield’s actions in particular “caused physical injury to patients who were under her control and care,” Ivens said.

At the press conference, Assistant District Attorney Green said the grand jury, which met for eight hours, was presented with testimony and evidence from 21 witnesses and that the indictment against Schofield “represents the highest charge that the evidence in this case can support.”

“In a criminal case involving a homicide of any degree, whether murder, manslaughter or involuntary manslaughter, the state or the prosecution must prove that the actions of the accused person caused the death of the victim,” Green said.

“Investigators in this case consulted numerous medical experts, all of whom agreed that they could not conclude that the death of any of the patients was directly attributable to the infections. Therefore, none of these charges have been filed.”

The amount of bail is “representative of the number of charges in this case,” Green said. Each of these charges carries a prison sentence of five years and ten months.

Under Oregon law, a person commits second-degree assault, a class B felony, if he or she:

(a) ‘Intentionally or knowingly causes serious bodily injury to another person;

(b) ‘intentionally or knowingly inflicts bodily harm on another person by means of a deadly or dangerous weapon; or

(c) ‘Recklessly inflicts serious bodily injury on another person by means of a deadly or dangerous weapon under circumstances demonstrating utter indifference to the value of human life.’

Police declined to say whether Schofield stole the fentanyl for his own use or to sell.

“I’m not going to get into her personal life, but obviously I don’t think Ms. Schofield originally went into the medical field to do this,” Ivens said. “So, you know, draw your own conclusions from that. I think somewhere along the line in her profession, she lost the sense of what she was doing, and (that) led to this, which is really tragic.”

Although neither Asante authorities nor Medford police had publicly released her name before Thursday, Schofield, who lives in Medford, was first identified in a civil lawsuit filed Feb. 26 by the Idiart Law Group in Central Point on behalf of the estate of 65-year-old Horace “Buddy” Wilson.

Wilson died on February 25, 2022 – before the one-year statute of limitations on the charges expired – after Schofield allegedly switched prescription fentanyl with non-sterile tap water administered into Wilson’s bloodstream through his central venous catheter, according to court documents.

Schofield’s nursing license was suspended in November and expired in April. Before Idiart filed his lawsuit, the Rogue Valley Times interviewed several families who said they were contacted by Asante officials in December and told their loved ones had become ill or died after a nurse replaced patients’ painkillers with tap water.

One of the victims named in the district court complaint unsealed Thursday is Roberta Porter, 71, of Klamath Falls. Earlier this year, the Times interviewed her son, Shawn Porter of Phoenix, Arizona. On Dec. 23, he learned that his mother’s death from a serious infection was linked to the embezzlement of medication by a hospital nurse.

He said his mother had already been buried a full year before police contacted him. After learning of Schofield’s arrest, Shawn Porter told the Times he was frustrated by how long it had taken.

“That’s what has been troubling me for some time, knowing that she is free,” he said, adding: “Her arrest comes with at least a sigh of relief.”

Porter believed the charges should have been “more serious,” even though “the charges are consistent with what investigators told me several months ago,” he said.

“I wasn’t happy about it then and I’m not happy now.” He said a detective told him: “It was like stabbing someone with a knife… My thought was: If you stab 44 people with a knife and they all die, that’s not assault II.”

Shawn Porter said he would follow Schofield’s trial in the hope, but also in his skepticism, that even more serious charges could be brought against the former nurse.

“I’m not thrilled with the level of the charges,” he said, “but if there are enough of them – even 40 counts of assault – hopefully she’ll be stuck for a long time. … This was the first big domino that’s been waiting to fall for a long time.”

In addition to Roberta Porter, the court filing released Thursday lists the following victims: Seth Pine, Duane Goodman, Alice Johnson, Mark Caldwell, Patrick Lewallen, Gary Marshall, Andrew Amaya, Donald Patterson, Joy Manzo, Samuel Allison, Michelle Wood, Kermit Miranda, Michael Read, Douglas Young, Lucien Allen, Marty Bolin, Zachariah Roberts, Justine Siemens, Kerrie Danielson, Jon Meade, Candi Palomares, Herman Sheperd, Rebecca Olson, James Geear, Allan Kissee, Jeffrey Isenhart, Kelly Moore, Amanda Carvin-Pitluck, Robin Bartlett, Rebecca Rogers, Maureen Schroeder, Jared Phipps, Bronson Pickett, Jeffery Morton, Devin Kent, Royce Mayo, Daniel Clark, Ronald Sizemore, Lindsey Moyer, Thomas Weasel, Linda Becker, Barry Samsten and Marlene Murphy.

Reach reporter Buffy Pollock at 458-488-2029 or [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @orwritergal. This story first appeared in the Rogue Valley Times.