John Hogan

WZZM

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — A former Meijer employee who used phony prescriptions to get more than 33,000 hydrocodone pills at the Gaines Township store and Walgreens was sentenced Thursday to six months in the Kent County Jail.

“This was a situation where temptation was more than she could deal with,’’ the attorney for 31-year-old Brianne Nicole Degano told the sentencing judge.

Degano tearfully apologized to Kent County Circuit Court Judge Mark Trusock. “I am embarrassed and ashamed,’’ she said. “It’s not who I am.’’

The Grand Rapids woman has worked for Meijer since she was a teen. Investigators say she used prescription pads to write scripts for hydrocodone, a highly potent opioid painkiller that’s in the same family as morphine and oxycodone.

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She was charged in August with embezzlement and obtaining the drug by fraud while working at the Meijer store at 1801 Marketplace Drive SE in Gaines Township.

Degano has been addicted to opioid painkillers since she was 18 years old, court records show. She falsified prescriptions for herself to get medication from the Meijer pharmacy, although Walgreens was occasionally targeted,court records show.

Degano sold some of the pills and split them with another addict, court records show. She was able to get 33,572 pills over the course of several years.

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Officials at Meijer say its losses exceed $14,000, but Degano told the court she paid for the medication.

Did you take pills without paying for them?’’ Trusock asked.

“No sir,’’ Degano responded.

The restitution issue, Trusock decided, should be addressed at a later date.

He placed Delgano on probation for five years, with the first six months to be served in jail.

John Hogan is a reporter for WZZM.