Hawkeye Reporter

A Marshalltown woman has been sentenced to six months in federal prison for diverting controlled substances and making false statements in medical records. Amanda Nicole Manatt, 37, was employed as a registered nurse at Unity Point Marshalltown Hospital, where she diverted drugs including fentanyl, hydromorphone, and morphine for her own use in 2023. She obtained these substances under patients’ names and falsely documented their administration.

Manatt’s employment at Unity Point ended in December 2023. In January 2024, she began working as a nurse at Mary Greely Medical Center’s emergency room. There, she again acquired controlled substances using patients’ names and recorded them as administered before taking them herself until her employment ended in April 2024.

Court documents indicate that some patients experienced pain because they did not receive the prescribed medication. In other cases, Manatt took more medication than the patients required. Her actions led to health care benefit programs being billed for drugs that were never given to patients.

Following her prison term, Manatt will serve three years of supervised release. She must also pay $5,258.20 in restitution, a $5,500 fine, and a $300 special assessment. Federal parole is not available.

United States Attorney Richard D. Westphal of the Southern District of Iowa announced the sentence. The case was investigated by the Department of Inspections, Appeals, and Licensing Medicaid Fraud Control Unit (MFCU), Tama County Sheriff’s Office, and Iowa Insurance Fraud Bureau.

"There is no parole in the federal system," according to the announcement by United States Attorney Richard D. Westphal of the Southern District of Iowa.