LAURINBURG – A lawyer for the director of a Laurinburg nursing home accused of drug trafficking call the charges a mistake stemming from her doing her job as a health care worker.
Tammie Leigh Bullard, the director of Willow Place Assisted Living and Memory Care, is charged with drug possession and trafficking charges, according to the Cabarrus County Sheriff’s Office. The arrest was in made in Concord in January 2016 before Bullard began work in Laurinburg.
Bullard’s attorney Vernon Russell said his client was returning unused medication to a physician when she was stopped by Concord police.
Part of Bullard’s job as then-director of Country Home Assisted Living in Concord was to dispose of unused medication, according to Russell.
“A patient was being treated by a doctor at the [Veteran’s Administration] and had a prescription for narcotics,” Russell said. “Because his prescription changed, there were unused medications.”
He added that pharmacies have a protocol for retrieving unused medication, but the VA does not.
Russell said Bullard contacted the prescribing physician at the VA hospital who told her to bring him the unused portion and he would give her a receipt for it. The problem came about because the doctor was working night shifts and could not meet Bullard during the day, according to Russell.
On her way to drop off the medication, Bullard stopped to have dinner with her husband and family.
“Officers got a report of a man assaulting a woman while she was driving,” Russell said. “[The officer] stopped her because she had a similar vehicle.”
The officer asked Bullard for permission to search her car and she assented, Russell said. The officer found the medication but would not accept Bullard’s explanation for why she had medication prescribed to another person, the attorney said.
Bullard was arrested on two felony counts of trafficking heroin/opium, and has also been charged with one count of possession of a schedule II drug and one count of possession of a schedule IV drug. She was initially arrested for DWI and later charged with trafficking, police said.
Russell provided The Laurinburg Exchange with a signed letter from Dr. Radwan Ibrahim who wrote about his agreement with Bullard to receive the medication after hours because he was working a night shift at the Salisbury VA Medical Center.
“On Jan. 8, 2016 I received a call from … to inform me of her plan to bring the bottle of controlled substance to Salisbury VAMC pharmacy for proper disposal and to obtain a receipt for its return,” Ibrahim said in the letter.
Ibrahim could not be reached for comment.
According to the letter the two were scheduled to meet after 8 p.m.
Court records show that Bullard had a court appearance on May 31, but the case has been continued. No court date has been set.
Bullard has declined to discuss the case and referred question to her attorney.
She began working at Willow Place Assisted Living and Memory Care in early 2017.
Shortly after her tenure began the home was cited for 16 infractions following an extensive inspection by the state.
One of infractions Willow Place was cited for was improperly handling medications.
