FARGO (AP) - Investigators checked a drawer at the RapidCare clinic in Fargo last month after they were told a patient had been given a bottle of methadone without a prescription, court documents show.

The office manager at RapidCare told investigators Dr. Rodney Lee ordered her to give the drug to the patient, an affidavit supporting the search warrant says. The drawer was searched June 26.

Lee and the manager, Abby Lewis, told The Forum on Tuesday that the patient never received methadone, and said it was one of a number of mistakes in the document that officials used to justify the search.

Lee's medical license was suspended this week by the state Board of Medical Examiners. A hearing is scheduled next month.

John Fugleberg, a special agent with the North Dakota Bureau of Criminal Investigation, wrote in his court affidavit that he has been helping the federal Drug Enforcement Administration investigate Lee.

Lee operates two RapidCare clinics in Fargo and one each in Grand Forks and in Moorhead and Detroit Lakes, Minn.

Lee "is being investigated relative to dispensing controlled substances and whether or not Dr. Lee has violated the law with regards to the delivery of controlled substances," Fugleberg wrote.

Lee denies ever mishandling the medications.

"The only thing I ever put in that drawer is medicine I instructed people to return to me for eventual destruction," Lee said.

Among the items seized last month were two white tubes with miscellaneous pills, two white envelopes with pills and more than 70 bottles, the evidence inventory list says.

Lewis told investigators Lee called her that morning and told her to take all the drugs and medications from the drawer, bag them and dispose of them in the garbage.

Lee and Lewis said it was coincidence that Lee ordered the drawer emptied the same day the DEA and licensing board officials arrived. Lewis returned the drugs to the drawer when she learned the officials were coming, Lee said.

The affidavit says Lewis told investigators Lee took drugs from the clinic's dispensing machine and put them in the drawer. She said Tuesday the drugs were those Lee had originally dispensed to patients and were later returned.

The affidavit also says Lewis told investigators that "the clinic had received more methadone and other drugs than the clinic had records for dispensing." On Tuesday, she said the difference between the inventory and the dispenser records as "not a huge difference at all."