Wednesday, December 21, 2016 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
Forensic scientist
sentenced to prison
U.S. District Judge Anna
J. Brown sentenced former
Oregon State Police Forensic
Scientist Nika Larsen, 36, of
Bend, to 36 months in fed-
eral prison on December
12, for obtaining controlled
substances by misrepresen-
tation, fraud and deception.
Following her prison sen-
tence, Larsen will be on one
year of supervised release
that will include 250 hours of
community service.
“An effective criminal jus-
tice system requires the high-
est level of personal integ-
rity from everyone working
within the system,” said Billy
J. Williams, United States
Attorney for the District of
Oregon. “If a single link in
this chain is compromised,
the equitable administra-
tion of justice is at risk. Ms.
Larsen’s sentence reflects the
severity of her crimes and
demonstrates our law enforce-
ment community’s commit-
ment to policing its own and
protecting the integrity of the
justice system.”
In August 2016, Larsen
plead guilty to two counts
of obtaining controlled sub-
stances by misrepresentation,
fraud and abuse by using her
position as a state forensic sci-
entist to steal controlled sub-
stances from evidence items
submitted by law enforcement
agencies to the Oregon State
Police Crime Lab for analysis
and testing. Between January
2013 and August 2015,
Larsen was found to have sto-
len over 700 controlled sub-
stances in pill form from over
50 separate evidence items.
The stolen pills included
Morphine, Hydrocodone,
Diazepam, Methamphetamine
(pill form), Oxycodone
and Methadone. Larsen’s
offenses occurred primarily in
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Umatilla and Deschutes coun-
ties at the Oregon State Police
Crime Labs in Pendleton and
Bend.
The case was investigated
by the Oregon State Police
and the Oregon Department
of Justice, Criminal Justice
Division. The case was prose-
cuted by Pamala R. Holsinger,
Assistant United States
Attorney for the District
of Oregon, and Special
Assistant United States
Attorney Stephen H. Gunnels
from the Deschutes County
District Attorney’s Office.
Multnomah County Chief
Deputy District Attorney
Donald N. Rees served as
Special Deputy District
Attorney for Umatilla County
during the case and also rep-
resented the Oregon District
Attorney’s Association
(ODAA).
LETTERS
Continued from page 2
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s
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To the Editor:
Craig Rullman’s column “To Infinity”
about John Glenn was a wonderful tribute
to the man and all those who have served
our country. Thank you so much for sharing
Glenn’s 1974 speech. Those were stirring
words and Rullman’s summation that it is
nice to just sit back and enjoy the story of a
“remarkable and selfless man” is something
we all need.
Let’s start thinking and talking about our
heroes and stop trying to tear down everyone
with a little different opinion.
Jean Nave
s
s
s
To the Editor:
I thoroughly enjoyed reading Craig
Rullman’s tribute to the late John Glenn in
his column “The Bunkhouse Chronicle,”
December 14 issue of The Nugget.
Much of what Rullman had to say about
Glenn I already knew, but not every-
thing, and I’m grateful for the additional
information about this extraordinary
man.
Like many of us, I suspect, I wasn’t aware
9
of who John Glenn was before the early
days of the space program. But when NASA
announced their selection of the original
seven Mercury astronauts, I quickly boned
up on who these new national heroes were.
Reflecting back to that time of my life, I can
see more clearly that my intense interest in
the space program probably bordered on the
unreasonable.
Walter Cronkite and I never missed a
Mercury launch. I used to be able to recite the
names of the Mercury astronauts (I can still do
that), the order of when each flew in space, the
dates of their launch, and how many orbits of
the earth each one logged (two of the flights
were sub-orbital).
I continued to follow the manned space
program through the Gemini and Apollo pro-
grams, but never as passionately as I did dur-
ing those magical days of Project Mercury.
Thank you, Craig, for the stroll down
memory lane.
One final thought: I’m sure the other six
Mercury astronauts were just as courageous,
with the same love of country, as Glenn dis-
played. But, as Rullman pointed out, Glenn
seemed to be able to apply that can-do atti-
tude to many other aspects of his life in such
a remarkable way that few of us will ever
match.
Godspeed, John Glenn.
Ron Thorkildson
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