(C) Iowa Capital Dispatch
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Former delivery driver for Iowa pharmacy charged in a string of burglaries [1]
['Clark Kauffman', 'More From Author', '- August']
Date: 2023-08-23
The former delivery driver for a western Iowa pharmacy is accused of burglarizing the homes of her former customers in order to steal their medications.
Records from the Iowa Board of Nursing and the Iowa Board of Pharmacy indicate that in June 2021, Aaron Stangel, the owner of Stangel Pharmacy in Onawa, hired Sarah Haptonstall, 45, of Onawa, as a delivery driver without first performing any type of background check.
The pharmacy board alleges Haptonstall never applied for, and was never issued, the required state registration as a pharmacy support worker. According to the board, after Haptonstall was hired, Stangel concluded that an unspecified number of orders she delivered were missing some of the controlled substances that should have been included.
In August 2021, Stangel allegedly confirmed that one customer’s order for hydrocodone, delivered by Haptonstall, had missing tablets that were replaced with Tylenol. After being confronted, Haptonstall resigned, according to the board.
The board charged Stangel with employing a person who was not registered as a pharmacy support person and with failing to report the theft of controlled substances. In resolving the case, the parties recently agreed that Stangel would accept a warning from the board.
Haptonstall was arrested on felony charges with police alleging that on at least three occasions, she had swapped hydrocodone pills intended for Stangel Pharmacy customers with Tylenol-Arthritis pills, keeping the hydrocodone for herself. At the time, Haptonstall was also working as a nurse for Embassy Rehab and Care Center in Sergeant Bluff.
As a result of the criminal charges, Haptonstall was convicted of one count of controlled-substance violations and one remaining count of the same offense was dismissed. She was awarded a deferred judgment in the case and sentenced to three years of probation.
Nineteen months later, burglaries committed
Currently, Haptonstall is facing additional criminal charges in Monona County that are tied to her work for Stangel Pharmacy.
Police allege that in March 2023, 19 months after she left the pharmacy, Haptonstall returned to the homes of several Stangel Pharmacy customers where she had delivered medications, broke into their houses and apartments, and stole the prescription drugs she knew they were likely to have on hand.
“She is now targeting the elderly in order to obtain prescription narcotics,” Deputy Robert Maule of the Monona County Sheriff’s Office told a judge in a search warrant application.
Haptonstall is charged with six counts of burglary, six counts of unlawful possession of drugs and one count of illegal possession of a firearm. She has pleaded not guilty to all changes and a trial is scheduled for Dec. 12, 2023.
According to the nursing board, Haptonstall was working at an Iowa care facility last year when she removed hydrocodone tablets from a package that she filled with Tylenol. The board later charged her with failing to properly safeguard medications, and this year she agreed to surrender her nursing license.
Iowa Board of Nursing records indicate Haptonstall had a history of issues even before she was hired by the pharmacy.
In 2014, the Board of Nursing charged Haptonstall with criminal conduct in the practice of nursing, alleging that while working for a home health care agency she misrepresented herself and obtained a prescription for hydrocodone for her own use. She later pleaded guilty to a charge of obtaining a prescription drug by fraud and the board placed her license on probation.
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