Ex-MI Firefighter Pleads Guilty in Pill Thefts

Oct. 04 -- ADRIAN, MI -- A former Adrian firefighter pleaded guilty Wednesday to twice stealing painkillers.

Russell Daniel Fenner's plea agreement with the Lenawee County Prosecutor's Office calls for him to participate in the Lenawee County Circuit Court drug court program. Assistant prosecutor Scott Baker told Circuit Judge Anna Marie Anzalone that Fenner has been screened for the drug court program, which has a team of counselors, probation officers and law enforcement personnel who decide whether a defendant qualifies for the intensive probation program.

Fenner, 39, faces up to four years in prison on each of the larceny in a building charges to which he pleaded guilty. Anzalone warned him that if he violates probation or is removed from drug court that he could go to prison.

He said he understood.

Fenner originally was charged in April with going to a man's house in Adrian in March under the guise of checking on him after Fenner and other Adrian firefighters treated him after a fall the previous June. He was accused of stealing Percocet, an opioid-based painkiller, while he was in the man's house. Fenner told the court Wednesday he got it from a pill bottle in the kitchen.

State police who investigated the incident said Fenner was on leave from the Adrian Fire Department at the time but was dressed in a fire department shirt.

Fenner was subsequently dismissed from the fire department.

He was charged in July with stealing pills from a an Adrian residence in February. Baker said in a text message that Fenner was not portraying himself as a firefighter then.

Fenner told the court Wednesday he was a guest in the home when he stole morphine pills from a bottle he found in the kitchen.

Anzalone scheduled sentencing for Nov. 15.

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