Former Public Health Head Nurse charged with two counts regarding the dispensing of prescription drugs

By Ted Pennekamp

The November terminations of two Crawford County Public Health nurses has taken another twist. 

Former Head Nurse Gloria Wall, 69, was charged in Crawford County Circuit Court on Feb. 13, with one count of dispensing a prescription drug without a practitioner’s order, and one count of possession of an illegally obtained prescription. 

Both counts are misdemeanors. Wall faces up to a year in jail and fines totaling $1,000 if convicted of both counts.

According to the criminal complaint, the investigation into Wall began on Oct. 20, 2017, two days after Wall and nurse Judy Powell were escorted out of the Crawford County Administration Building and placed on paid suspension.

According to the complaint, after Wall was escorted from the building, she contacted Coroner Joe Morovits and told Morovits to remove a box of medication from her office. Morovits took the box of medication and put it in a locker outside of his office in the Administration Building basement.

Human Services Director Dan McWilliams placed the box back in Wall’s office  and the locks to her office were changed.

McWilliams, County Board Chairman Tom Cornford and Personnel Committee Chairman Gerald Krachey told investigators that they had suspected that Wall and Powell had been re-administering medications to clients of the Crawford County Jail, Crawford County Social Workers and Crawford County Health, the complaint said. In addition to being the head nurse, Wall also contracted as the Crawford County Jail nurse, according to the complaint.

The investigators, which included members of the Crawford County Sheriff’s Department and the Prairie du Chien Police Department, were given permission by Cornford, Krachey and McWilliams to conduct a search of the offices of Wall and Powell, including other areas medication may be stored.

The investigating officers were also told that several prescription pill medications had the names torn off, covered or blacked out. Public Health staff members said they were directed by Wall to put newly printed labels from their office on the medication bottles, the complaint said. These employees said that they were concerned for their jobs because of fear of retribution if they told anyone.

The officers searched Wall’s and Powell’s offices, including a lab area, and collected numerous prescription items.

A Vernon County investigator joined the investigation on Oct. 24, and was informed by the other investigators that some of the prescriptions recovered in the search were for deceased people or they were expired medication.

It was noted that the Department of Public Health was also a drug take back location where medications were brought in. Wall was supposed to give the medications to Coroner Morovits to destroy.

McWilliams told investigators a lot of his staff had been very upset about the situation, the staff felt intimidated by Wall, it had been a hostile working environment, and the staff did not necessarily agree with what Wall was allegedly doing, according to the complaint.

One Public Health employee said she may have put labels on bottles for Wall as many as 100 times, the complaint said. 

Jail Administrator Russell Wittrig told investigators Wall generally set out medication on Tuesday mornings and she sometimes brought samples over, but would only allow those samples to go to inmates who had an actual prescription. Wittrig said he noticed they saved a lot of money on medications over the last few years, but he did not know why, the complaint said.

Powell told investigators that Wall sometimes had unopened medications from veterans she would reuse, the complaint said. Powell said she assumed those medications were for the jail. Powell stated on a few occasions when an inmate did not have money or insurance for a prescription, Wall would help them out if the medicine was available, according to the complaint.

Powell said she never gave medications to jail inmates and rarely went to the jail, according to the complaint. Powell said she assumed most of the medications and the labels that were made were samples that the county had. 

Powell has not been charged.

An investigator asked Wall if she took any medication from her office, put it in another bottle, and took it to the jail. Wall replied, “I bet you’ll find it hadn’t happened many times, but it happened a few times,” according to the complaint. Wall said if somebody would come in from prison and had to go in front of the judge, and the prison hadn’t sent their medications, she would try to accommodate them by getting them the medication they needed, according to the complaint.

Wall also told the investigator another employee of public health had told Wall she should watch her back, the complaint said. The employee told investigators she never told Wall to watch her back. “I did not say that to her nor would I,” said the employee. “I had mentioned to Wall in the past that it’s not a good idea to have that medication in her office. I didn’t feel comfortable with that. I never told her to watch her back.”

Two jailers, who typically set up the medications, told investigators that they had concerns over the years because sometimes the bottles did not have a particular person’s name on them, just the name of the medication. One jailer said Wall would bring over a lot of over the counter medications in miscellaneous bottles, such as stool softeners. The other jailer said they were told to put all of the empty and leftover prescriptions from inmates that were released in Wall’s mailbox, according to the complaint. 

At the Nov. 10, 2017 regular personnel committee meeting, which Wall and Powell had requested be held in open session, Wall and Powell were discharged from their positions by a unanimous committee vote. The reason given for their firings was that they had falsified Powell’s vacation time records over a number of years.

Under the direction of Labor Attorney Ed Corcoran, Wall and Powell made written requests for the personnel and public health committees to conduct an informal review of their terminations. At a meeting on Nov. 14, 2017, the terminations were upheld.

Over the ensuing weeks, some county residents questioned the terminations as possibly unfair via letters to the editor or by speaking at the regular county board meeting.

At the Dec. 19, 2017 regular county board meeting, County Board President Tom Cornford read a statement about the terminations in an effort to dispel rumors and any falsehoods that county residents might have had.

Also, during that meeting, County Board Supervisor Gerald Krachey said, “There is also another investigation going on. This is not over with people.” Krachey said he and other board members couldn’t talk about the investigation because it was still ongoing. County Board Supervisor Larry Kelley told those in attendance at the Dec. 19, 2017 meeting that the details of the investigation will eventually come out.

Now, it appears as though the details of the investigation have come out.