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TALLAHASSEE, FL - Attorney General Bill McCollum today announced the arrest of a former Columbia County registered nurse for fraudulently obtaining controlled substances. Kimberly Ann Bruner will also be charged with falsifying medical records to facilitate the prescription fraud. She was taken into custody by investigators with the Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit and the Marion County Sheriff’s Office.

Bruner, 38, was formerly employed as a registered nurse with Shands at Lakeshore Hospital in Lake City. Acting on information provided by the Florida Department of Health, the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit began investigating the diversion of narcotics within the hospital and determined Bruner was responsible. The investigation revealed that Bruner, who was assigned to provide nursing care to surgical patients, would divert prescribed narcotic pain relievers from patients and take them herself if patients did not ask for their medicine. She would then falsify patient medical records to indicate the patients had received the medicine.

Bruner’s nursing license has been suspended by the Department of Health and she is no longer working at the hospital. She is charged with 26 counts of obtaining controlled substances by fraud or deception, each a third-degree felony, and 10 counts of falsifying medical records, each a second-degree misdemeanor. If convicted on all counts, she could be sentenced to a maximum of 130 years in prison. The case will be prosecuted by the Columbia County State Attorney’s Office.