A family member sitting at a critically ill patient’s bedside at Cleveland Clinic Tradition Hospital says they watched a nurse who wasn’t assigned to that patient walk in, draw fluid from the fentanyl IV line with a syringe, and pocket it. That’s what Port St. Lucie police allege happened in late June — and what led, three and a half months later, to the October 8 arrest of Leslie Ann Pope, a 54-year-old former ICU nurse from Jupiter, on three felony drug charges.

What investigators say happened

Police say the encounters happened on two consecutive days, June 24 and June 25, 2026. On the first day, a relative of the patient reported seeing Pope withdraw fluid from the fentanyl IV bag and slip the syringe into her pocket. She was not assigned to care for that patient, according to the police report. The next day, investigators say hospital surveillance video captured her returning to the same room and handling the patient’s IV equipment again. Detectives said they could not confirm whether any additional medication was actually removed during that second visit — only that, they say, the footage showed her manipulating protective caps on the IV equipment.

The Drug Enforcement Administration assisted Port St. Lucie police, who reviewed hospital surveillance footage, interviewed staff and witnesses, and pulled medication-dispensing and transaction records tied to the patient’s chart before an arrest warrant was issued.

The charges

Pope faces three felony counts:

  • Grand theft of a controlled substance — the core allegation that she took fentanyl she had no right to take.
  • Possession of a controlled substance without a prescription — tied to the allegation that she possessed the drug without a valid medical order.
  • Fraudulently obtaining a controlled substance — tied to how investigators say she accessed it, by going around the assignment that should have kept her out of that room.

Pope was booked and has since been released on bond. Cleveland Clinic confirmed she no longer works for the health system and said it is cooperating with the ongoing investigation. According to published reports, Pope has denied unlawfully taking any drugs.

Why this matters for nurses

I’ve worked ICU for a long time, and here’s the detail that should stick with every nurse reading this: if what police allege is true, no automated system caught this on day one — a family member at the bedside did. Diversion cases I’ve seen uncovered usually start the same quiet way, with a coworker’s gut feeling about a med count that doesn’t add up, not a dashboard alert. This is also a useful look at how these investigations actually move once someone speaks up: it took roughly three and a half months — a hospital review, a state health department referral, then police and the DEA pulling surveillance footage, cross-referencing dispensing logs against the chart and interviewing staff — before anyone signed an arrest warrant. None of that tells you whether Pope is guilty of anything — a charge is an accusation, not a verdict. It does tell you that the system meant to catch diversion in real time is slow, and it still leans hard on someone in the room noticing.

What happens next

The case remains active in St. Lucie County, and no trial date has been reported yet. No plea or trial date has been reported. As with every case in this section, the charges above are accusations: Pope is presumed innocent unless and until a court finds otherwise.