Robert Salonga
1/30/2013
From San Jose Mercury News
SAN JOSE — Charges against one of two former Santa Clara County jail nurses arrested in November on suspicion of stealing inmate medications have been dismissed while the other pleaded guilty to a lesser charge and agreed to a court-approved drug-diversion program.
To their lawyer, the resolutions are in line with his stance that Elmer Alegado and Rodolfo Idian were careless in keeping track of the drugs but had no illicit intent for personal use or gain.
“I look at this case, and it looked more like laziness and negligence than anything criminal,” San Jose-based attorney Riccardo Ippolito said.
Alegado, 50, of Lathrop, and Idian, a 54-year-old San Jose resident, were arrested in early November after the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office, which runs the jail, got a tip that nurses had been secreting away pills intended for inmates. Deputies searched nurses lockers and made the arrests on the allegation that the two had pills “outside the scope of their work duties.”
Ippolito argued his clients were adhering to an unspoken practice of keeping on hand a few unused pills — from instances like when inmates refuse to take their meds — to make up for marginal shortages when drug inventories are checked.
On Jan. 15, the District Attorney’s Office declined to file charges against Idian. Supervising Deputy District Attorney James Sibley said while it was clear wrongdoing occurred with the handling of the medications, the discovery of pills could not be linked to Idian beyond a reasonable doubt because it involved an unsecured locker that he seldom used…
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