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NATIONAL BRIEFING / COLORADO

Times Wire Reports

A surgery technician accused of possibly exposing thousands of hospital patients to hepatitis C has pleaded guilty to some of the charges against her.

Kristen Diane Parker’s plea was part of an agreement that calls for a 20-year prison term. She will be formally sentenced Dec. 11.

The 26-year-old previously pleaded not guilty to the 42-count indictment. But she has now pleaded guilty to five counts of tampering with a consumer product and five counts of obtaining a controlled substance by deceit or subterfuge.

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Prosecutors say that at two hospitals, Parker stole syringes of painkillers to feed a drug habit and replaced them with syringes that she had used and refilled with saline solution.

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