Elena Ornelaz

When Park County Circuit Court Judge Waters called Elena Nicole Ornelaz’s case on Monday, he wondered about the pronunciation of Ornelaz’s last name, then paused.

“Having read the affidavit, who knows what it really is,” Waters mused. “Who are you really?”

That affidavit of probable cause, filed by prosecutors, alleges that Ornelaz gave differing names and told a series of strange stories as she attempted to get painkilling drugs at Powell Valley Hospital early Sunday morning.

An emergency room doctor told police that Ornelaz — who initially identified herself as “Elenastacia M. Nicole” — “wanted narcotics ‘to go’ and had even asked to be admitted to the hospital so she could get pain medications through an IV,” wrote Powell Police Sgt. Matt McCaslin. However, after running some tests, McCaslin said the doctor found no reason to admit Ornelaz.

Hospital staffers’ suspicions were further piqued when Ornelaz claimed to work for the federal Drug Enforcement Administration and to have had some involvement with weapons of destruction, McCaslin wrote. Police were called to the hospital around 2:30 a.m. Sunday.

The subsequent investigation resulted in Ornelaz being arrested and charged with a misdemeanor count of attempting to acquire a controlled substance by fraud. The 35-year-old Billings resident pleaded not guilty to the charge on Monday.

Charging documents indicate that, if prosecutors prove their case, it would be Ornelaz’s fifth conviction in six years for trying to obtain substances or medical care by fraud.

Ornelaz remained in jail on Wednesday afternoon, with bail set at $5,000.

“Here we have her as listed as giving several false representations about who she was, where she lived, what she was doing, what was the nature of her being at the hospital,” Deputy Park County Attorney Mike Greenwood argued Monday in requesting the $5,000 bond. “These representations lead us to believe that she could very well be a threat to the community here in Powell or in Cody.”

Ornelaz said the prosecutor’s recommendation was “completely fine” and Judge Waters accepted it.

As Waters noted, even if she comes up with the cash, Ornelaz may not go free: She has an active warrant for her arrest in Colorado, where she’s currently on parole.

Ornelaz has reportedly been living in Billings with her fiancé. Police say she got a ride to the Powell hospital from another Billings man, who reportedly met her on the dating website Plenty of Fish.

The driver later told police that Ornelaz hadn’t looked well, and had explained she couldn’t go to any clinics in Billings.

“[The driver] told me that he was just trying to help her out but felt that she had just been playing him for a fool,” McCaslin wrote.

Ornelaz told police she’d come to Powell to clean a house that her father owns, but both her fiancé in Billings and the man who drove her to the hospital said she’d come looking for medical attention; Ornelaz’s fiancé said she traveled to Powell “because the doctors in Billings know her and don’t help her and just keep sending her home,” McCaslin wrote.

Beyond being unable to find a valid reason to provide her with painkillers, the affidavit indicates that staff at Powell Valley Hospital were also suspicious of “Elena Nicole” because she could produce no identification and her story didn’t add up.

McCaslin’s affidavit says that Ornelaz gave him several stories that conflicted with the facts. For instance, she claimed to have never stopped in this part of Wyoming and said she’d moved back to the United States just a couple weeks earlier. However, a state database showed “Elena Nicole” had received and filled a prescription for oxycodone over in Cody in mid-December, according to McCaslin’s affidavit.

The woman eventually put the officer on the phone with her fiancé. He reportedly contradicted her account, saying she hadn’t lived outside the country for some time, and he identified her as Elena Pitzen-Ornelaz.

Shortly after that, Powell Police Communications Supervisor Bobbie Colvin discovered the active warrant for Ornelaz’s arrest and found a booking photo that confirmed her identity.

“I asked Elena about the last name of Ornelaz and she admitted that was her last name. Elena said she hadn’t used it for a long time,” McCaslin wrote, adding, “I informed Elena that there was a warrant out of Colorado and she said that she was not aware of that but did not seem too surprised.”

The affidavit says Ornelaz has four prior convictions for providing false information to obtain hospital care or controlled substance; those incidents reportedly took place between 2013 and 2016 in Colorado.

A trial on the Park County fraud charge is tentatively set for June 6.