Pharmacy Employee Charged With Stealing, Selling Drugs

Rocky Mount, N.C. — An employee at a local pharmacy has been charged with stealing thousands of prescription pills and selling them, authorities said.

Morgan Brooke Jones, 21, of 5900 Terri Wood Drive, was arrested on April 3 after an undercover officer bought Alprazolam, a generic form of Xanax, on the street, authorities said. About 9,700 Alprazolam pills were seized after Jones' arrest, and investigators determined the pills were stolen from Almand’s Drug Store at Westridge Shopping Center, where Jones was employed as a pharmaceutical technician.

Jones was charged with two counts each of possession with the intent to sell and deliver Schedule IV controlled substance and maintaining a vehicle for the purpose of keeping and storing a controlled substance and one count of selling and delivering a Schedule IV controlled substance.

After the arrest, the Nash County Sheriff’s Office called in the State Bureau of Investigation and the North Carolina Board of Pharmacy to assist in the case.

Jones was rearrested Thursday and charged with 12 counts of embezzlement of a controlled substance by employee stemming from the theft of 24,000 Alprazolam pills over the last year, authorities said.