La Porte EMS workers were inspecting ambulances in January when they noticed something wasn't adding up. Sixty bottles of morphine and 163 packages of Fentanyl were allegedly gone.
According to court documents, staff immediately suspected Capt. Jason Peugeot.
"His role as the captain of the medical inventory was to order and resupply central supply," La Porte EMS Chief Ray Nolan said.
Nolan tells us the investigation started in January. By February, Peugeot stopped showing up to work.
Peugeot, 36, was charged earlier this month with tampering with a government record, diversion of controlled substances for personal use and diversion of controlled substances for another person's use. He was arrested and is out of jail on a $12,000 bond.
"The system worked. That's how we discovered the diversion," Nolan said. "I would like to make it foolproof where it couldn't happen, but I don't know if that's ever really going to be possible."
The La Porte chief says he has since added extra supervisors to the inventory process, but Peugeot also served as the EMS chief for Nassau Bay. Officials there say they have found discrepancies in their inventories and are currently investigating if Peugeot may have stolen medication there.
Just last week, there was a similar arrest in Katy. The fire chief there is accused of allegedly giving a distant relative Valium from a Katy ambulance.
"You want to have compassion for the employee for whatever reason, personally, that they felt like they needed to divert like that," Nolan said. "But at the same time, we're all held to a high level of professionalism."
Find Pooja on Facebook at PoojaLodhia-Reporter or on Twitter at @impoojalodhia
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