An assistant pharmacy professor at the University of Rhode Island in South Kingstown resigned after she was convicted of defrauding government regulators by dispensing drugs without valid prescriptions, according to The Providence Journal.
Michelle Caetano Thomas, who left her post at the university last week, was convicted in a Boston federal court May 3 for allegedly signing off on fraudulent prescriptions for fake patients with names like "Coco Puff," and "Filet O' Fish."
Prosecutors said Ms. Thomas was a verification pharmacist for New England Compounding Center in Framingham, Mass., a now-defunct pharmacy blamed for a nationwide fungal meningitis outbreak that killed 76 people. Ms. Thomas was not liked to the meningitis outbreak.
She is appealing her fraud conviction.