A former employee of Intermountain Health in Colorado has been sentenced after she stole more than 100 prescriptions from patients experiencing significant pain.Shelbi Wolken, 35, of Wheat Ridge was sentenced to 18 months in fed eral prison, the U.S. Attorney's Office said Thursday. Wolken previously pleaded guilty to one county of tampering with a consumer product.Federal authorities say Wolken, who was working as a case management coordinator for Intermountain Health, abused her position to access electronic medical records and patients' personal identifying information.In July 2024, Intermountain Health officials discovered that Wolken used a patient's information to pick up a prescription for oxycodone at the in-house pharmacy at Saint Josephs Hospital in Denver. She then replaced the stolen medication with loratadine, an allergy medication.Investigators say Wolken admitted to being addicted to opiates and they found she picked up about 139 prescriptions for about 127 patients between December 2022 and July 2024. They say Wolken replaced the stolen medications with ibuprofen, aspirin, acetaminophen and loratadine.Patients whose prescriptions were tampered with reported significant pain and complications after surgery because they ingested the wrong medication without knowing.This kind of conduct violates federal law, causes patient suffering, and puts people who are already facing medical challenges at risk, said United States Attorney for the District of Colorado Peter McNeilly in a statement. I hope this sentence sends a message to others who consider feeding their addictions by stealing prescribed medications from patients. ...read more read less