Former Tupelo Health Care Worker Pleads Guilty

PRESS RELEASE

JACKSON— Attorney General Jim Hood announced a Tupelo Resident Assistant has been sentenced for possession of a controlled substance.

SWEAT

Angela Sweat, 37, entered an open plea of guilty Monday for one count of acquiring or obtaining possession of a controlled substance or a legal drug by larceny, embezzlement, misrepresentation, fraud, forgery, deception or subterfuge. Lee County Circuit Court Judge Jim S. Pounds sentenced Sweat to serve five years in prison with five years suspended followed by five years of supervised probation. Sweat is required to be imprisoned in the Lee County Jail for nine days then must begin drug court. Additionally, she was ordered to pay $500 to the Office of the Attorney General for investigative fees, a $500 fine and court costs.

Sweat was arrested April 1 following an indictment for the crime which occurred last October. At the time of the crime, she was employed as a Resident Assistant by an assisted living facility in Tupelo. Sweat obtained Norco, a controlled substance, which was prescribed to and purchased for a patient of the facility, then converted the pills to her own use by consuming them.

“We trust our health care providers to care for and assist those in need, not fraudulently take medications intended for their patients,” Attorney General Hood said.

This case was investigated by Joe Sanderson of the Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit with assistance by the Lee County Sheriff’s Department. Prosecution was handled by Special Assistant Mark McClinton.