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Deputies: Nurse stole more than 10,000 tablets of painkillers, other meds from Spring Hill rehab facility

 
Ashley Taylor (Hernando County Sheriff's Office)
Ashley Taylor (Hernando County Sheriff's Office)
Published July 25, 2018

SPRING HILL — Hernando County Sheriff's deputies on Wednesday arrested a nurse after they said she stole a long list of painkillers and other medications from the rehab facility where she worked.

Ashley Taylor, 33, faces 15 charges, including 12 counts of possession of a controlled substance, according to the Sheriff's Office. Spring Hill Health and Rehab Center reported the theft Tuesday and identified Taylor as a suspect.

Taylor told deputies she ordered extra medication from the pharmacy so patients wouldn't miss their dosages, deputies said. Those drugs included Percocet, morphine, codeine and alprazolam, commonly sold as Xanax.

The nurse cooperated with deputies, they said, and told them she'd been struggling for years with a drug addiction that began with an injury.

At Taylor's house, detectives found more than 300 empty blister packs — more than 10,000 tablets of medication — related to the thefts, according to the Sheriff's Office.

She was being held Wednesday at the Hernando County Detention Center on $31,000 bond.