Mason City Pharmacist Sentenced to Federal Prison for Diverting Controlled Substances

Megan Elsbury, age 43, from Mason City, Iowa, was sentenced June 17, 2025, to 1 month in federal prison, after a February 7, 2025, guilty plea to one count of Acquiring a Controlled Substance by Means of Misrepresentation, Fraud, Deception, and Subterfuge.

In a plea agreement, Elsbury admitted to being employed and working at, at least three difference pharmacies located in Mason City, Iowa from 2008 to 2023.  During her employment, Elsbury admitted she diverted controlled substances such as codeine, phentermine, alprazolam, clonazepam, lorazepam, pregabalin, and tramadol, for her own personal use.  She created unauthorized prescriptions, and falsified prescription records/inventory, in the names of existing patients, primarily when the pharmacy was closed, filled the prescriptions, paid for the prescriptions, and took the prescriptions for her own personal use.

Elsbury was sentenced in Sioux City by United States District Court Judge Leonard T. Strand to 1 month imprisonment.  She must also serve a 1-year term of supervised release after the prison term.  There is no parole in the federal system.

Elsbury was released on the bond previously set and is to surrender to the United States Marshals on July 14, 2025.

The case was investigated by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s Diversion Control Division and was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Ron Timmons.  

Court file information at https://ecf.iand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl.

The case file number is 25-03007.

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