A Ramsey County Public Health nurse was charged Monday with stealing prescription pills from a jail inmate.

Sara K. Ceniceros, 44, was charged in Ramsey County District Court with theft of a controlled substance. She allegedly stole 14½ alprazolam pills from an inmate's prescription bottle. The medication is typically used to treat anxiety.

Ramsey County spokesman John Siqveland confirmed that Ceniceros was working at the jail as a nurse, and has been with the county since 2005.

According to the complaint: Another nurse told authorities that the inmate had been released from the jail at 1 a.m. Feb. 27 without her medication. That nurse placed the pills in a bag and brought it to the narcotics room. She told Ceniceros that the inmate would likely be back.

About 5 p.m. that day, the inmate returned. A second nurse found that the bottle contained 48½ pills instead of 63.

The first nurse confronted Ceniceros about the missing pills on Feb. 28. A correctional sergeant spoke with Ceniceros that day. She asked him whether the cameras recorded all of the time, what they showed and how often they were monitored.

Ceniceros initially denied taking the pills. She confessed after she was told that video showed her taking them out of the room, the complaint said.

She had consumed all of the pills over a few days "to alleviate some of the pressures she felt in her life," the complaint said.

Chao Xiong