Doctor, nurse charged
District Attorney Mark Matloff has filed a string of felony drug charges against a doctor and a nurse following an investigation by the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (OBN), McCurtain County District Court records show.
The case involves local activity, but an Edmond doctor, Dr. Nitin Sawheny, M.D., has been charged here with conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance plus six counts of distribution of a controlled substance, including possession with intent to distribute.
Also charged is an Advanced Practice Registered Nurse (APRN) and Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP), Kristen M. Clouse, who has a business address of 108 South Central (directly across the street from this newspaper).
She faces the same charges as the doctor.
OBN agent James Lowry filed the sworn statement in support of the criminal charges.
Lowry said on Aug. 11, OBN received information about possible law violations by Clouse. The initial complaint revealed Clouse saw patients independently as a mid-level practitioner with no supervising doctor known to be present in her Idabel clinic.
Patients seen by Clouse would get prescriptions at area pharmacies for Adderall and Ritalin, Schedule II controlled drugs, with the name of Dr. Sawheny, M.D. on the bottles, the agent said.
Sawheny had authority to prescribe controlled drugs Schedule II through V with an expiration date of Oct. 31, 2026.
There were no disciplinary actions noted in Sawheny’s registration files.
Clouse had a registration as an Advanced Practice Registered Nurse working in Idabel.
She held prescriptive authority for controlled drug schedules III through V, with an expiration date of 10/31/2027.
She also had no disciplinary actions in her files, and Dr. Sawheny was listed as her supervising physician.
Lowry conducted a patient history probe involving six patients between Sept. 14, 2025 and Sept. 14, 2026.
Lowry said the prescriptions included Schedule II drugs, Dextroamp-Amphetamine.
The trend, Lowry said, all involved patients getting prescriptions sent to the pharmacies by the defendants on the same days.
“If the doctor was in fact practicing in Edmond and the nurse in Idabel, the logistics of in-person doctor/patient relationship establishing visits would prove challenging based on the information reviewed,” the agent said.
On Sept. 22 of this year, several OBNDD agents went to the South Central clinic to conduct a records audit.
They said a billing clerk told them Clouse travels to two counseling centers in Antlers and in Hugo to assist her patients.
Agents asked for an interview with Clouse, and she later arrived from Hugo.
Agents were dressed in plain clothes and had concealed firearms, Lowry said.
They showed Clouse their credentials and explained the reason for the visit.
Clouse made many statements, which the agent itemized.
Lowry said that Clouse initially said she would send prescriptions for Schedule II drugs to an electronic health record queue that Dr. Sawheny would review and then prescribe electronically.
According to the agent, she later recanted and admitted she had acted outside the scope of practice and created a login appearing as though the doctor was reviewing her records before the drugs were prescribed.
The ‘electronic fob’
The agent said she also admitted having an electronic prescribing fob, with a username and password access for the doctor to send prescriptions to the pharmacy.
The doctor said he had no recollection of ever authorizing a fob being sent to her clinic.
The agent said he admitted he became acquainted with Clouse when she applied for a nurse practitioner position at an Idabel clinic associated with McCurtain Memorial Hospital when Sawheny was Chief Medical Officer.
The defendant described the prescription procedure, but he had no recollection of some of the statements Clouse had made to agents.
The OBN agent said Sawheny admitted to not having a doctor/patient relationship with any but two of Clouse’s patients, and “admitted, in the grand scheme of things, he should have terminated his supervising physician contract with Clouse.”
District Attorney Matloff provided notice to the court that a special prosecutor, Michael Patlan, Assistant General Counsel for OBN, will assist in prosecuting the case.
Records show warrants have been issued for the arrests of both the doctor and the nurse.
A judge set bond amounts of $50,000 for each defendant.
