SAN JOSE — A San Jose Fire Department captain with a history of abusing narcotics on the job has been criminally charged following his arrest last month on suspicion of stealing morphine and other controlled substances from a fire station, with authorities revealing more instances as the result of an ongoing investigation.

Mark Moalem, a 45-year-old Gilroy resident and 23-year SJFD veteran, was arrested April 17 following a San Jose Police Department investigation. The Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office announced Monday that it has charged him with several crimes, and he is currently out of custody.

Moalem, who is on leave from the fire agency and has had his EMT license suspended by the state, was scheduled to be arraigned Monday.

“The community puts their lives in the hands of first responders during emergencies,” District Attorney Jeff Rosen said in a statement. “There is no excuse for violating the trust and safety of Santa Clara County residents.”

Three days before his arrest, the fire department said it alerted police after an inspection and restock of fire station medications at Station 4 on Leigh Avenue discovered that a vial of morphine in a lockbox was tampered with, which coincided with a paramedic reporting earlier that day that a dose of morphine had no effect on a patient.

Investigators suspect that someone, presumed to be Moalem, was removing narcotics from similar vials — containing morphine and also midazolam and benzodiazapene — and substituting an inert substance.

Officials said a fire station audit yielded evidence that vials of the drugs had been tampered with at 17 of the city’s 34 fire stations, and that a box of vials was missing from a city fire truck. The police investigation also found Moalem’s car being present near Station 4 when the box went missing, and that surveillance images of the driver resembled Moalem.

Prosecutors also said Monday that investigators determined that on April 8, nine days before his arrest, Moalem was seen off duty at Station 29 — where he was not assigned — between two fire trucks near where a narcotics box was kept.

A search warrant served at Moalem’s home reportedly led to the recovery of six fire department vial caps for morphine, four department vials of midazolam and four department caps of midozolam, four bags of IV solution and “a large quantity of needles.”

Prosecutors said Monday that Moalem was also suspected in the discovery of a missing morphine bottle from a fire station two years ago. There was no indication Monday that this was reported to or investigated by police.

According to the fire department, Moalem joined SJFD in 2002. In November 2013, while on duty he was rushed to a hospital after being found unconscious on the floor of a men’s room alongside a tourniquet, an empty syringe, and a vial of morphine for which he had no prescription, according to a 2015 administrative law ruling for the state Emergency Medical Services Authority.

Moalem was arrested and admitted to police, and later the EMSA, that he was addicted to opiates following a work-related back injury, and he was later charged with a felony and two misdemeanors related to his possession of the drug and paraphernalia. He ultimately received a deferred judgment, meaning his conviction was suspended in exchange for completing a court-supervised drug rehabilitation program.

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Moalem narrowly kept his paramedic license and received discipline from the fire department that effectively put him on probation for four years and also included a year-long pay cut and being subject to random drug tests.

The EMSA ruling also revealed that prior to the 2013 arrest, “SJFD was aware of his drug problem,” which included Moalem being in “full blown addiction” in the previous year that led to him checking into a detox center and going on disability leave.

It was during that seven-month leave, the ruling states, that his drug abuse escalated to the point where he turned to drug dealers when he could no longer obtain prescriptions for opiates. He was back on duty for about five months before the bathroom incident, when he was reportedly experiencing withdrawal symptoms and decided to inject himself with morphine.

Following his deferred judgment, Moalem told EMSA that he was receiving therapy and participating in Narcotics Anonymous, and officials related to his rehab, fire department leaders at the time, the firefighters union, and department colleagues all supported his return to duty. The state agency put his license on probation for five years.

Moalem’s current EMT license, which expires in July, is now listed by the EMSA as suspended.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.