Coast nurse practitioner accused of prescription fraud for sleep aid pills, officials say

A nurse practitioner at Maxem Health Urgent Care in Pascagoula and Gulfport has been arrested for allegedly writing prescriptions to family and friends for a sleeping aid that she used herself.

Over the course of three-year span, Leslie Wilbourne, 46, had picked up 146 prescriptions, each containing 30 doses of the sleep aid Ambien that she allegedly took herself, according to a release from the Mississippi Department of Public Safety.

She was arrested on a charge of obtaining a controlled substance by fraud or theft.

Agents with the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation and and the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Gulfport Tactical Division Unit began an investigation after receiving a complaint about Wilbourne.

Wilbourne surrendered to authorities on Thursday.

She was booked at the Harrison County jail, where her bond was set at $7,500.

Margaret Baker

Sun Herald

601-909-0541

Margaret is an investigative reporter whose search for truth exposed corrupt sheriffs, a police chief and various jailers and led to the first prosecution of a federal hate crime for the murder of a transgendered person. She worked on the Sun Herald’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Hurricane Katrina team. When she pursues a big story, she is relentless.