ONAWA, Iowa (KCAU) — A former nurse from Onawa, Iowa, was sentenced to more than three years in federal prison for stealing pain medications from nursing home residents, burglarizing multiple residences, committing bank fraud, and possessing a firearm as a felon.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office Northern District of Iowa said in a release that a federal judge handed a prison term to Sarah Haptonstall, 47, on July 16.

She’s ordered to pay more than $8,000 in restitution to her former employer and repay $5,000 in court-appointed fees, the release said. Haptonstall must also serve a three-year term of supervised release after the prison sentence. There’s no parole in the federal system.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) said she had previously been released on a bond and is expected to surrender to the Bureau of Prisons on a future date.

Authorities said Haptonstall pleaded guilty on February 24 to multiple charges:

• One count of acquiring and attempting to acquire a controlled substance by misrepresentation, fraud, deception, or subterfuge
• One count of possession of a firearm by a felon
• One count of bank fraud

Law enforcement said in a plea deal, and at the plea and sentencing hearings, that Haptonstall admitted to burglarizing a couple’s home in Onawa multiple times to steal narcotic pain medication in March 2023.

Officials said Haptonstall knew that the couple had medication to relieve constant nerve pain because, as a nurse in 2021, she delivered medicines to the house.

Authorities said when she was arrested on March 10, 2023, after burglarizing the couple’s home for the last time, Haptonstall had a 9mm pistol in her truck. At the time, she was a felon and an alleged drug user, which made it illegal for her to have firearms in her possession.

In February 2020, the DOJ said Haptonstall bought two 9mm pistols after falsely stating that she was not an unlawful user of, or addicted to, a controlled substance.

Law enforcement said the burglaries at the home in Onawa were part of a bigger scheme she maintained in the western part of Iowa.

Federal authorities said Haptonstall stole pain medications from multiple apartments in Onawa in February and March 2023.

While working as a licensed nurse in Iowa, officials said between April and October 2022, she stole hydrocodone pills from four elderly individuals at nursing homes in Onawa and Sergeant Bluff.

Law enforcement said a 90-year-old woman suffered from severe pain as she died because Haptonstall stole her pain medicine, swapped it for Tylenol, and made a false entry in the woman’s medical record. Another patient was in hospice when Haptonstall stole their narcotics.

DOJ reported that she admitted to committing bank fraud in early 2023 against a small family-owned business in Onawa when working as the bookkeeper. She embezzled more than $8,000 from the company.

Federal officials said she wrote fraudulent checks to herself, drawn on the company’s account, and bore one of the owner’s signatures. Haptonstall disguised those checks with false and fake entries in the electronic bookkeeping system.

Law enforcement said Haptonstall obtained a 10-year, fully suspended prison sentence in state court for felony drug diversion in February 2023. This happened while she committed bank fraud and around one month before she started to burglarize homes in Onawa. DOJ said she admitted to swapping a patient’s hydrocodone for Tylenol pills while working at a pharmacy as a delivery driver.

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