A former nurse at Houston Methodist who stole drugs meant for patients for her personal use will surrender her Texas nursing license for life, spend 120 days in the Harris County Jail and then be placed on four years of probation, District Attorney Kim Ogg announced.

“Our job is to protect the community, and in this case it means ensuring that this woman never be allowed to be a nurse again,” Ogg said. “Being a nurse, or any health care worker, carries an incredible amount of responsibility, and anyone who does not maintain the highest level of integrity should not be allowed to work in that field.”

Alexis Joann McNeilly, 25, was arrested last year after being caught manipulating a medication-dispensing system at the hospital in the Texas Medical Center so that she could steal the drugs for personal use.

After taking vials out of the machine without a valid order, she would use a syringe to empty the vials, then refill them with salt water and return them to the dispenser.

She was also caught on surveillance video at the hospital injecting fentanyl into her hand. An investigation revealed that she stole fentanyl and hydromorphone, an opioid that is more powerful than morphine, several times beginning in late April 2023.

Houston Methodist cooperated in uncovering the crime and developing charges. In May 2023, a supervisor conducting an audit on the drugs in a dispenser found several vials that looked suspicious. That supervisor had the vials removed and tested, which showed that the liquid medication had been replaced with saline.

Further Methodist internal investigation into the machine records showed that McNeilly had accessed those drugs, but none of her patients had been prescribed them.

Investigators then used the hospital security cameras to find surveillance video of McNeilly accessing the machine. They saw that she was using a syringe to drain the liquid out of the vials and refilling them with saline. They found video of her doing it at least 11 times from April 20 to May 10, 2023.

The hospital had contacted agents with the Drug Enforcement Administration to alert them about what was going on. Investigators with the Houston Police Department were also involved and filed the charges. The evidence that had been found was documented, and investigators contacted McNeilly, who had been fired.

She told police that she had done something similar at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas. There, hospital staff became suspicious about the number of times she was creating overrides for one of the medication dispensers.

After staff at that hospital found empty vials in the trash can of a restroom that McNeilly had just exited, she was given a drug test that came back positive for morphine, hydromorphone and marijuana. She was fired, and the matter was still being reviewed by the Texas agency that licenses nurses when she was hired at Houston Methodist.

Assistant District Attorney Michael Eber, who is assigned to the Financial Crimes and Public Corruption divisions of the DA’s Office, prosecuted McNeilly.

“What was most important is that she not ever be allowed to be a nurse, to put patients at risk, ever again,” Eber said. “She has to surrender her license, and even if she successfully completes probation, it is a final conviction, so she cannot ever again get a nursing license.”

McNeilly pleaded guilty Tuesday to two counts of diversion of a controlled substance and was taken into custody immediately to begin serving 120 days in jail as a condition of the agreement. Her time on probation will allow her to be supervised and get rehabilitative treatment as well. She was facing a maximum of two years in state jail.

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