ROCKLAND, Maine — A 46-year-old Warren woman is awaiting extradition to New Hampshire, where she faces charges of diverting drugs while working as a nurse at a Concord hospital.
Kerry L. Bridges agreed Monday in Knox County Unified Court to waive extradition on a charge of being a fugitive from justice. Bridges said in court Monday that she would have returned to New Hampshire Friday afternoon when officers apprehended her if they had let her.
The fugitive from justice complaint filed in Knox County states that Bridges has been charged with three counts of possession of a controlled drug. Knox County Assistant District Attorney Jeffrey Baroody said New Hampshire officials have said they plan to send someone up to Rockland to return Bridges to that state to face the charges.
Danielle Horgan, an attorney with the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Medicaid fraud control unit, said Monday that the criminal complaints were filed last week alleging that the offenses occurred in March and April at Concord Hospital where she worked.
The New Hampshire Board of Nursing issued an emergency order on May 22 that suspended Bridges’ privilege to practice nursing in New Hampshire until a hearing is held, according to Board Executive Director Denise Nies.
According to a June 6 article by the Manchester Union Leader newspaper in New Hampshire, Bridges is suspected of diverting six types of drugs, including morphine, Fentanyl and Vicodin, from Concord Hospital.
The Maine Board of Nursing reprimanded Bridges in July 2014 following an investigation into possible diversion of drugs while she worked at Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor. Bridges, who had resigned as a registered nurse from EMMC in August 2012, denied diverting drugs but acknowledged her record keeping on administering narcotics was substandard, according the reprimand.
Bridges had volunteered to take a drug test and provide six months worth of drug screening results from the military, where she also worked, but that was rejected by EMMC, according to the reprimand record.
Bridges had told the Maine board that she often got verbal orders from physicians to treat patients with pain medication while working in the emergency department.