Californian pleads guilty in false drug test case

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The former owner of a California drug testing service, pleaded guilty to charges she falsified random and pre-employment drug tests of commercial drivers.

Demetri Dearth, former owner and operator of Advanced Substance Abuse Programs (ASAP), Redding, California, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court, Sacramento, California, to mail fraud and making false statements to a government agency.

The U.S. Department of Transportation‘s Office of Inspector General said in a statement:

The investigation revealed that between March 2009 and February 2010, ASAP collected urine specimens from commercial drivers but did not forward many of the specimens to certified laboratories, as the law required. Instead, Dearth created false Custody and Control Forms stating the urine specimens had been released to Federal Express, which would transfer them to a laboratory. In reality, the specimens never left Dearth’s lab. Dearth also falsified reports indicating that a Medical Review Officer (MRO) had reviewed the results of various urine tests when those tests had never occurred. These false reports named legitimate MROs, provided their addresses, and presented forged MRO signatures.