NECC pharmacist found guilty of racketeering, not of murder
A pharmacist was convicted yesterday of shipping tainted drugs and falsifying records amid a deadly 2012 meningitis outbreak, but he was acquitted of murder charges in 25 deaths.
Glenn Chin, 49, of Canton, a former supervisory pharmacist at the New England Compounding Center, was found guilty in U.S. District Court in Boston of racketeering, racketeering conspiracy, mail fraud and introduction of misbranded drugs into interstate commerce with the intent to defraud and mislead.
“Mr. Chin ran NECC’s clean room operations with depraved disregard for human lives,” said Acting U.S. Attorney William D. Weinreb. “As a licensed pharmacist, Mr. Chin took an oath to protect patients, but instead deliberately violated safety regulations, causing the largest public health crisis caused by a pharmaceutical drug in U.S. history.”
Federal prosecutors said 753 patients in 20 states were diagnosed with a fungal infection after receiving injections of preservativefree methylprednisolone acetate manufactured by NECC. Of those 753 patients, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 64 patients in nine states died.
Inside the racketeering indictment, prosecutors charged Chin with 25 counts of murder; however a jury acquitted Chin of those counts, sparing him a possible life sentence.
Chin’s lawyer, Stephen Weymouth, said his client does not feel personal responsibility for the dozens killed by the drugs.
“He doesn’t feel personally responsible because he didn’t commit murder. But clearly he was involved in something that caused a tremendous public health outbreak across the United States,” Weymouth said last night outside the courthouse after the verdict.
The jury found Chin guilty of shipping of drugs prior to receiving test results confirming their sterility and directed pharmacy technicians to mislabel drugs to conceal this practice.
He also directed the compounding of drugs with expired ingredients, including chemotherapy drugs that had expired several years prior, prosecutors said.
The jury found that Chin prioritized drug production over cleaning, directed the forging of cleaning logs, and routinely ignored mold and bacteria found inside the clean room, prosecutors said.
The man who ran the compounding center, Barry Cadden, was sentenced to nine years’ imprisonment earlier this year for his conviction on 57 felony counts, including racketeering, in connection with the 2012 public health disaster. Like Chin, a jury acquitted Cadden of 25 counts of seconddegree murder.
Chin faces up to 20 years in prison when he is sentenced Jan. 30, but Weymouth said he expects Chin will get less than half that.
“His sentence? I don’t want to say,” Weymouth said. “Probably no more than nine years and I’m hoping for less.”