SANDY — The doctor who was the target of Richard Worthington's siege on Alta View Hospital in 1991 was charged Monday with stealing pain pills from the hospital.
Glade B. Curtis, 50, is charged with unlawful possession of drugs, a third-degree felony, and theft, a class B misdemeanor.
Curtis is accused of going into a patient's room in the maternity ward around 3 a.m. on Oct. 13 and taking 11 hydrocodone pills from a bottle, said Lt. Kevin Thacker.
The woman was not in the room at the time, but her husband was asleep on the couch. Thacker said the husband was awakened by the sound of pills being rattled in a bottle. He looked up to see a man wiping the bottle with a cloth and leaving.
The husband reported the incident to hospital officials, who called security, Thacker said. Security eventually questioned Curtis.
According to court documents, Curtis admitted to hospital administrators that he took the pills.
Alta View spokesman Jess Gomez said Curtis was immediately placed on suspension. His permanent status with the hospital will be reviewed by the board of trustees within the next few weeks, Gomez said.
This is not the first time Curtis has been in trouble over medication. In 1998 the licensing division of the Utah Department of Commerce revoked his license for writing prescription medications and put him on five years probation, division spokesman Kim Morris said.
Curtis was writing phony prescriptions for himself, Morris said.
Curtis first gained attention in the news in September 1991 when Richard Worthington, 39, stormed into the hospital armed with guns and explosives. Worthington said he wanted to kill Curtis for a sterilization surgery he performed on Worthington's wife, Karen, in 1989.
Worthington shot and killed nurse Karla Roth as he entered the hospital and eventually took six adults and three newborns hostage for 18 hours before he was taken into custody.
Worthington was sentenced in 1992 to life in prison, where he committed suicide a year later.
E-MAIL: preavy@desnews.com