DuPage County State’s Attorney Joe Birkett announced Thursday that Daniel Karczewski, 43, of Morris was sentenced to 60 days in the DuPage County Jail Work Release Program for stealing morphine from ambulances in several local municipalities.

Karczewski entered a blind plea of guilty to one count of burglary and one count of official misconduct Thursday morning in front of DuPage County Circuit Court Judge Perry Thompson.

The plea and sentencing are the result of allegations that on Sept. 22, 2006, Karczewski, wearing his Glenside paramedic uniform, was found inside an ambulance in Lockport removing vials of morphine.

An investigation into the matter revealed that from April 2006 through September 2006, Karczewski had entered at least seven different ambulances in Glen Ellyn, Downers Grove, Lombard, Westmont, Lockport and Glendale Heights and had either taken vials of morphine and replaced them with vials containing a saline solution or removed morphine by extracting the morphine from the vial with a syringe and then filling up the vials with a saline solution.

“Mr. Karczewski violated the trust placed in him and disgraced his uniform,” Birkett said. “Thankfully, replacing morphine with a saline solution would only cause pain control to be less effective and would not put anyone in danger. It is my sincerest hope that Mr. Karczewski will be able to serve his time and become a contributing member of society as he was before this episode.”

In addition to his jail sentence, Karczewski was ordered to serve 48 months probation and to undergo any and all counseling as deemed necessary by the Probation Department.

Karczewski is scheduled to begin serving his jail sentence Wednesday, Sept. 19.