Carmel nurse practitioner charged with dealing drugs appears in court, bond set at $200K

CARMEL, Ind. — A nurse practitioner who police said collected more than a thousand opioid pills in a five-day span using fraudulent prescriptions was formally charged on Wednesday.

Katherine Curtis, 34, is facing nearly 30 felony charges including numerous counts of drug dealing, identity deception and corrupt business influence.

According to investigators, Curtis was first on their radar in January after several pharmacies in central Indiana began reporting fraudulent prescriptions that she had written. The prescriptions were for large quantities of hydrocodone and oxycodone and were being prescribed to patients who had no history of being on the medication.

Curtis was also prescribing those same patients drugs like Xanax and Valium, which police pointed out are not prescribed with opioids because of the increased risk of overdosing.

Numerous retail pharmacies including Kroger, CVS and Walgreens stopped filling prescriptions written by Curtis and that’s when police say the fraud began.

“These pharmacists are trained and they’re good at their jobs so when they see these red flags, they begin flagging certain providers and, in this case, she didn’t take no for an answer,” Lt. Justin Gough said.

In a 20-page affidavit, police laid out how Curtis hired other nurse practitioners to write the prescriptions since the pharmacies wouldn’t recognize them. Investigators said she would also have prescriptions for her tenants and would send them to pick them up and bring her back the pills.

Several things raised suspicions, including the directions on the pill bottles. On several occasions, the pill bottles would say “please refill before surgery on 9/21” despite the fact that the prescription was written in October.

Curtis would also write prescriptions for her patients and then go and pick them up herself, according to court filings.

In a five-day span, police said she collected 1,111 oxycodone pills that she was planning to sell.

Curtis attended her initial court hearing on Wednesday afternoon where a preliminary not guilty plea was entered on her behalf.

Hamilton County Deputy Prosecutor Megan Singleton asked the judge to set Curtis’ bond at $1 million.

“Given the allegations in the probable cause affidavit of drug dealing, abuse of her position and her license, abuse of the pharmacy system as well as victimizing her patients employees and co-workers the state believes she’s poses a high risk to the community,” Singleton said.

The public defender said Curtis is a mother, has no prior criminal record and has ties to the community.

“Considering the nature of the charges, the level of the charges and the amount of the charges…the information that the state mentioned does demonstrate to the court that you’re a danger to the community,” Judge Karen Morris said.

Judge Morris set Curtis’s bond at $200,000. If she posts it, she will not be allowed to prescribe medication, possess opioids without a valid prescription and will have to turn over her passport.