The idea of assisted living is that when you grow older and need help with everyday activities, you can be assured of steady care. If, say, you forget to take your medication, staff members will make sure you get it.

But at the Pleasant Valley Retirement Home in Dalton, Ga., something went horribly wrong. Rather than ensure that all residents received the proper medication, the facility’s manager was replacing some residents’ pills with over-the-counter medications such as aspirin in an effort to feed his own prescription drug habit, the local sheriff alleges.

Manager Wayne Dawn Jr., 37, whose wife owns the facility, is suspected of taking a variety of prescription pain medications from numerous residents over the course of a year. Now Dawn is charged with more than two dozen crimes—including six felony counts of cruelty to a person 65 or older—and residents of the home are left to wonder about their own health and safety.

One sliver of good news is that no resident is believed to have become ill or died as a result of missed doses. “It was done in a very slight, very soft way just to support his own habit,” says Whitfield County Sheriff Scott Chitwood. He believes that just a few pills were taken from a particular resident’s 30-day supply at a time, so an individual likely missed just one dose over any period of time.

Nonetheless, industry representatives are appalled. “This is an unfortunate and rare situation that’s not tolerable to us,” says Lisa Gelhaus of the National Center for Assisted Living, an industry group.

Assisted living is regulated at the state level and most states have standards in place to govern how medications are dispensed to residents, Gelhaus says. The National Center for Assisted Living provides information about each state’s regulations in a report on its website.

Before you select an assisted living facility, Gelhaus recommends that you find out whether the home is licensed or certified in your state, understand the facility’s rules, and visit several times at different times of the day to get a good feel for the place.

Meanwhile, back at Pleasant Valley, management is keeping mum. Representatives did not return calls from AARP Bulletin Today requesting comment.

Michelle Diament, who frequently writes for the Bulletin’s In the News section, lives in Memphis, Tenn.