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A correction to an earlier version of this article has been appended to the end of the article.

California’s pharmacy board is investigating whether three Bay Area Walgreens stores allowed an employee without a pharmacist license to verify or dispense hundreds of thousands of prescriptions over several years.

For more than a decade, Walgreens stores in Fremont, Milpitas and San Jose allowed Kim Thien Le to perform pharmacist duties — including reviewing patient drug use — for 745,355 prescriptions dispensed from a total of 395 Walgreens pharmacies, according to a California State Board of Pharmacy investigation.

If the allegations prove true, each store faces a range of penalties from receiving a formal reprimand to having its pharmacy license revoked, said Bob Dávila, a spokesman with the pharmacy board.

According to the pharmacy board’s complaint, 100,701 of those prescriptions were for controlled substances, many verified electronically and remotely. The complaint says the “greatest number of verifications had been performed in or for” the Walgreens at 2600 Mowry Ave. in Fremont. The complaint did not specify how many verifications or where all the 395 stores are located. Walgreens operates at 622 locations in California, and nearly 10,000 across the U.S. and its territories.

Le — who could not be reached for comment — also signed off on issuing medication to some patients whose prescription forms didn’t meet state requirements for preventing counterfeit prescriptions or black market distribution.

A hearing date for the accusations against Le and the three Walgreens locations has not yet been set, Dávila said. The final decision on punishment would rest with the board, after an administrative judge makes a recommendation.

Le worked for Walgreens in various capacities from 1999 until fall 2017, falsely serving as a pharmacist since 2006, according to the complaint, which was filed with the state attorney general’s office in October.

She acted as the pharmacist-in-charge at the Walgreens at 1833 N. Milpitas Blvd. from April 2016 to November 2016, and then as the pharmacist-in-charge for the Walgreens at 2105 Morrill Ave. in San Jose for nearly a year, beginning in November 2016.

In addition to verifying medications, San Jose staff members told investigators they saw Le counseling patients regarding their prescriptions, administering vaccinations to patients, and supervising intern pharmacists and pharmacy technicians, all tasks reserved for licensed pharmacists.

At the Fremont store, investigators listed 11 prescriptions, mostly for anti-anxiety medications, which were filled under Le’s authority even though the prescription request forms were not properly marked. For example, the forms lacked the required security watermarks that make it harder to counterfeit prescriptions.

Jim Cohn, a spokesman for Walgreens, said Le is no longer working for the company and has not since October 2017. He also added in an email on Wednesday that “upon learning of this issue, we undertook a re-verification of the licenses of all our pharmacists nationwide.”

Investigators said Le had a pharmacist technician license, which expired in 2008. The pharmacist license number listed in Walgreens’ records for Le actually belonged to another licensed pharmacist with a similar name, who was not employed by Walgreens, investigators said.

According to the pharmacy board complaint, when investigators confronted Le about the first license not belonging to her, she falsely told investigators she held another pharmacist license, but the investigation showed that one also belonged to another pharmacist with a similar name, not Le.

“Walgreens did not have or keep any proof of (Le’s) enrollment in or graduation from an accredited pharmacy school, nor did Walgreens have or keep copies of any of (Le’s) purported licenses,” the state’s complaint said.

Walgreens could not say whether any of Le’s licensure papers “were requested or reviewed” before she was hired. Walgreens was also “not able to locate a copy of any application for employment” filled out by Le.

All pharmacies must carefully check for proper credentials as a critical first step when considering hiring someone to handle drugs, said Jon Roth, the CEO of the California Pharmacists Association.

“It literally is a matter of life and death,” Roth said. “Medications can help and they can hurt. Some of those medication profiles are extremely complicated, and so there can be real patient harm that results from someone who’s not qualified or not licensed acting as a pharmacist.”

To become a licensed pharmacist, a person must complete the equivalent of a four-year professional degree program, following a minimum of two years of collegiate undergraduate study, according to the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy.

There’s also a national competency exam and a state ethics exam in California that must be passed before a license is issued, Roth said.

To become a pharmacist technician, which Le held a license for until 2008, significantly less schooling is required. Roth said it only requires a high school degree, or its equivalent, along with 240 hours of on-the-job training. Vocational trade schools also offer 12-18 month programs to train aspiring technicians.

When Le was informed by investigators that the two license numbers she claimed as her own belonged to other people, she said “Me and my son would be very grateful if you could just forget about this,” the complaint said.

“I will pay whatever fine,” and will “not be coming back to work as a pharmacist,” the complaint said Le told investigators.

She also claimed to have a valid pharmacy degree from Creighton University in Nebraska. Investigators said Creighton had files matching Le’s name and date of birth, but none that showed an undergraduate or graduate degree was ever awarded.

“The entry in their files could simply have been the result of an inquiry by her, and did not necessarily indicate enrollment or matriculation,” the complaint said.

For allegedly posing as a pharmacist, Le could be prevented from reactivating her expired pharmacy technician license.

Roth, the pharmacists association CEO, said pharmacies have “no room for error” when hiring and vetting pharmacists.

“Pharmacists are the face of neighborhood healthcare. We all walk into pharmacies all the time and speak with our pharmacist, whether it’s a small minor ailment, or a complex issue with our medication,” he said.

“So we have to be able to have the ultimate consumer trust that who we’re talking to is both licensed and trained to offer us that counseling.”

Consumers can check the status of a pharmacist or pharmacy license at the state’s license verification website.