A nurse accused of stealing pain medications from nursing home patients at New London Hospital's Clough Center has been acquitted after a four-day jury trial.

Dawn Ash of Charlestown said she was relieved by the verdict, which came down last week, but she said the prosecution still smarted. She was fired from the nursing home after her superiors confronted her about the alleged drug diversion in October last year, and she has been unable to work as a nurse while the charges were pending.

"The state wasted a whole heck of a lot of money on absolutely nothing," Ash said. "They should definitely get their facts straight before they start accusing innocent people of things they didn't do. I don't know if I'll ever get my reputation or my career or my good name back after this. I hope so."

Assistant Attorney General Philip Bradley, who prosecuted the case, said his office stands behind its prosecution, but respects the jury's decision.

"The state feels like it was a strong case that needed to be prosecuted, and ultimately it's the jury that finds the facts in the case," he said.

According to court records, Ash's superiors at the nursing home became concerned she might be stealing narcotics after they noticed that she requested pills for certain patients more than other nurses did. She was never accused of taking pain pills from patients who needed the medication.

She was confronted in a meeting with the nursing home director and three other superiors. According to accounts of the meeting filed with the court, Ash became upset but repeatedly denied stealing the pills.

"I feel like you want me to admit to something I didn't do," Ash told her bosses, according to an account written by Sherry Curry, a clinical coordinator at the Clough Center.

Later, according to the accounts, Ash answered "Uh huh" when asked if she was admitting to drug diversion.

During the trial, Ash testified in her own defense. According to her lawyer, Peter Decato, Ash explained that she was upset and frustrated by the accusations and had not confessed to illegal conduct.

"When Dawn testified, she said she was being flippant and sarcastic," Decato said.

Decato said that he thinks jurors were persuaded by Ash's testimony, and by the testimony of a defense nursing expert who reviewed the medical records of Ash's patients.

"She felt that the records reflected that the patients benefited from the medications that Dawn prescribed, and it was clear they weren't overmedicated or undermedicated - that they were appropriately medicated."

Ash was prosecuted by the attorney general's Medicaid fraud division, because the Clough Center houses patients covered by Medicaid and receives funding from the federal-state health insurance program for the poor and disabled.

Now that Ash has been acquitted of the criminal charges, she must go on to defend her nursing licenses in both Vermont and New Hampshire. Before the Clough Center accusations surfaced, her Vermont nursing license had been suspended because of allegations that she had improperly sought to obtain a prescription for a painkiller.

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