The
state court charges came after federal juries in Boston
convicted Barry Cadden and Glenn Chin of racketeering and fraud
but cleared them of second-degree murder over deaths caused by
tainted drugs New England Compounding Center produced.
The office of Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette, whose
state was among the hardest hit during the outbreak, charged
Cadden, NECC's former president, and Chin, its onetime
supervisory pharmacist, with 11 counts each of second-degree
murder.
Schuette's office brought the charges in Livingston County
District Court, according to online court records.
Representatives for Schuette did not immediately respond to
requests for comment on Friday.
Bruce Singal, a lawyer for Cadden, said he was unaware of the
new charges. A lawyer for Chin did not immediately respond to a
request for comment.
The news was first reported by the Livingston Daily.
Cadden, 52, and Chin, 50, were among 14 people indicted in
federal court in Boston in 2014 following a fungal meningitis
outbreak that authorities say was caused by mold-tainted
steroids produced by Framingham, Massachusetts-based NECC.
Those contaminated drugs sickened 793 people nationally,
including more than 100 who have died, according to federal
prosecutors.
Federal juries in 2017 convicted Cadden, a pharmacist who
co-owned NECC, and Chin, who supervised the so-called clean
rooms in which NECC made drugs, on racketeering and mail-fraud
charges but cleared them of second-degree murder related to 25
patients' deaths.
They were subsequently sentenced to nine and eight years in
prison, respectively. Both men are now incarcerated and are
appealing their convictions.
Last week, a co-owner and four former employees of NECC were
convicted of fraud and other illegal activities that helped
boost its business before the outbreak. Jurors acquitted a
pharmacist tried alongside them. [L1N1YI14W]
Four of the other federal defendants have pleaded guilty. The
trial of the two remaining defendants, both of whom were
pharmacists, is scheduled for March.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Tom Brown)
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