Nurse accused of writing phony prescriptions

Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice said last week that a former nurse at the Nassau University Medical Center was accused of writing phony prescriptions for opiate-based painkillers using prescription pads she stole from several doctors at the hospital. 

The nurse, Laurette Cantelmo, 56, of Levittown, was arrested on March 10 by investigators from the district attorney’s office following a joint investigation with the New York State Insurance Department, prosecutors said. 

“This defendant was entrusted to provide life-saving medical care to sick patients, not use her position to steal prescriptions for drugs,” Rice said. 

According to prosecutors, between Aug. 19, 2009 and Nov. 9, 2009, Cantelmo allegedly filled five prescriptions for a total of 960 Oxycontin pills at a pharmacy in Uniondale.  

Cantelmo wrote the phony prescriptions with pads from various NUMC doctors she worked with while employed as a nurse in the dialysis unit, prosecutors said. The defendant worked at the NUMC from 1986 until she resigned in 2010, and earned more than $98,000 per year, officials said.

NuHealth, the public benefit corporation that runs the NUMC, released a statement on the arrest. “Our compliance department initiated the investigation and worked cooperatively with the New York State Insurance Fraud Bureau,” the statement said, “which led to her resignation.” 

Prosecutors said that Cantelmo was charged with five felony counts of Criminal Possession of a Forged Instrument in the Second Degree, five felony counts of Forgery in the Second Degree and one misdemeanor count of Insurance Fraud in the Fifth Degree. If convicted, she faces up to seven years in prison, prosecutors said. She was scheduled to appear in court on Tuesday. 

The charges are merely accusations and the defendants are presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty.