Ambulance Squad Employee Charged With Stealing Drugs

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - The assistant chief of the Plymouth ambulance squad in Montgomery County is under arrest, accused of stealing narcotics from the ambulance company.

It was early last month when the Chief of Operations for the ambulance squad noticed that narcotics were missing from the company. At that point, surveillance cameras were set up in the office where the morphine was kept in a medical supply cabinet. District Attorney Risa Ferman says the surveillance caught Dominic Venezia on tape stealing the drugs.

Ferman says patient care was not compromised because of the alleged thefts, "Was anything taken from the ambulances? Was anything perhaps removed and substituted with a different sort of substance so that, God forbid, a patient could be compromised? The answer to those questions is no."

Ferman says the 37-year-old Norristown man told detectives he was dealing with personal issues and has a drug problem. "The drugs were stolen and they were intended for personal use," Ferman says. "There's no allegation or no evidence that they were transferred to any other person or delivered to any other person based upon the evidence that we have."

Venezia was also a police officer in Whitemarsh but no longer works there.

Reported by Suburban Bureau Chief Brad Segall, KYW Newsradio 1060