San Jose, CA, Fire Captain Charged with Stealing Drugs from Fire Station Lockbox
By Don Sweeney
Source The Island Packet (Hilton Head Island, S.C.) (TNS)
A fire captain faces charges that he stole painkillers and sedatives meant for emergency patients from a fire station lockbox, California prosecutors reported.
Mark Moalem, 45, of Gilroy, is a 22-year veteran of the San Jose Fire Department, the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office said in a Monday, May 19, news release.
His arraignment was scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Monday.
“These controlled medical drugs, which are kept secured inside fire engines, are used by paramedics to treat the ill or injured,” prosecutors said in the release.
An audit after a paramedic reported morphine administered to a patient had no effect found vials of morphine and midazolam, a benzodiazepine, had been tampered with at 17 stations, prosecutors said.
In some cases, the drugs had been removed and replaced with another substance, prosecutors said. The audit also found narcotics missing from a box in a fire truck.
“Further investigation by the San Jose Police Department using a license plate reader system tracked Moalem’s vehicle in the vicinity of the fire station during the time frame the narcotics box is alleged to have been stolen from Station 4,” prosecutors said. “The driver in the images matched Moalem’s description.”
On April 8, he was seen “in between two fire trucks near where a narcotics box is kept” at a fire station where he does not work, prosecutors said.
A search of his home found San Jose Fire Department vial caps for morphine and midazolam, vials of midazolam and four bags of saline, prosecutors said.
Moalem has been placed on leave, prosecutors said.
He was booked into jail on suspicion of “burglary at one fire station, child endangerment, and narcotics violations,” the city of San Jose said in a news release.
“Lives depend on our firefighters’ ability to administer medical care during emergencies which is why we take theft of controlled substances extremely seriously,” Mayor Matt Mahan said in a news release following Moalem’s arrest.
The San Jose Fire Department declined to comment on the latest developments in the case.
San Jose is about a 50-mile drive southeast from San Francisco.
Cop speaks up about missing drugs in evidence room, then is fired, NC suit says
Cops swap drugs in FL evidence for fakes, sell real stuff, feds say. 2 sentenced
Nurse swaps pain medicine meant for surgery patients with saline in CT, feds say
© 2025 The Island Packet (Hilton Head, S.C.). Visit www.islandpacket.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
