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 U.S. District Judge Richard Stearns in Boston said the appellate
court at least implicitly deemed as too light the original sentence
for Barry Cadden, the co-founder and former president of the
now-defunct New England Compounding Center (NECC).
"I do not personally agree, but so it is with many of the things I'm
required to do as a judge," he said.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Amanda Strachan said the prior sentence
minimized Cadden's conduct, which "grievously harmed" his victims.
She sought half the 35 years that prosecutors originally sought for
Cadden, a stiff term that defense lawyer Bruce Singal said was too
high for a fraud offense.
Stearns also ordered Cadden, 54, to pay $82 million in restitution
to his victims and forfeit $1.4 million to the government.
Prosecutors had sought 17-1/2 years for Cadden after successfully
appealing Stearns' initial decision to sentence Cadden and Glenn
Chin, NECC's supervisory pharmacist, to nine and eight years in
custody, respectively.
Both men were separately convicted in 2017 of racketeering and fraud
over misrepresentations to NECC customers about its drugs, but were
cleared of second-degree murder charges related to 25 patients'
deaths.
[to top of second column] |
 Prosecutors said those deaths
stemmed from a fungal meningitis outbreak traced
back to mold-tainted steroids that Framingham,
Massachusetts-based NECC produced in filthy and
unsafe conditions and sold to hospitals and
clinics nationally.
The outbreak sickened 793 patients, more than
100 of whom have died, prosecutors said.
A federal appeals court last year concluded
Stearns in determining the original sentences
wrongly concluded that only the hospitals that
bought NECC's drugs counted as victims and not
any patients injected with its contaminated
medications.
Stearns will resentence Chin on Thursday. Cadden
and Chin are in custody awaiting trial on
separate second-degree murder charges in
Michigan, which was hit hard by the outbreak.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by
Bill Berkrot)
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