FBI Investigating Texas Hospice Owner Who Allegedly Instructed Nurses to Overdose Patients

The FBI alleges Harris sent text messages like, “You need to make this patient go bye-bye,”
FBI Investigating Texas Hospice Owner Who Allegedly Instructed Nurses to Overdose Patients
The crest of the Federal Bureau of Investigation is seen in this file photo inside the J. Edgar Hoover FBI Building in Washington. (Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images)
3/30/2016
Updated:
3/30/2016

Brad Harris, 34, founder of Novus Health Care Services Inc., allegedly regularly instructed nurses to overdose hospice patients with drugs like morphine to quicken their deaths, and maximize profits, according to FBI documents obtained by NBC.

Harris, an accountant, founded the company in 2012, which is located in Frisco, Texas.

NBC obtained an affidavit from the FBI stating Harris directed a nurse to overdose three patients and requested another employee increase a patient’s meds to four-times the maximum, which the employee refused to carry out. 

The document doesn’t say if the first three patients were harmed.

The FBI alleges Harris sent text messages like, “You need to make this patient go bye-bye,” and told other health-care executives he was interested in “finding patients who would die within 24 hours.”

Court documents show the FBI conducted an office raid in September of 2015, interviewing several employees, and in February of this year, executed a search warrant.

Agents seized 18 DVDs of company emails and subpoenaed an additional 44 on September 17.

The Feb. 3 warrant entailed Novus’ data storage company ‘Smarsh,’ of Portland, Oregon, turn over all of their emails and medical records—which they did the same day.

There has yet to be any charges filed against Harris or Novus.