Ex-Funeral Director Guilty Of Harvesting Body Parts
Posted on Monday, 15 of December , 2008 at 9:05 pm
ROCHESTER—A former funeral director at the Thomas E. Burger Funeral Home in a Rochester suburb has been found guilty of illegally harvesting body parts from 17 corpses and selling them to a company for use in medical transplants.
Jason Gano, 32, was found guilty after trial of 52 charges that included body stealing, opening graves, unlawful dissection and scheme to defraud. He was acquitted of 18 charges relating to the unauthorized removal of parts from six corpses.
According to prosecutors, Gano was among a group of seven individuals who took organs from people who hadn’t given consent or were too old or sick to donate. Consent forms were then forged to make it appear that the “donors” were younger and healthier. The body parts were used in disk replacements, knee operations and a variety of other surgical procedures throughout the United States and Canada by doctors who had no knowledge from where the body parts originated.
He is the first of the seven arrested in the Rochester area to stand trial. In addition to Gano, those charged are Scott W. Batjer, funeral director and owner of SWB Funeral Services, Inc., DBA Profetta Funeral Home Chapel in Webster; Serrell Gayton,59, funeral home director at the Serenity Hills Funeral Chapel on East Main Street, Rochester; Kirssy Knapp, 29; Darlene Deats, 46, Kevin Vickers, 53, and Nicolas Sloyer, 33, all employed by Biomedical Tissue Services Inc. in Henrietta.
It is alleged that there were 36 victims in the alleged body harvesting involving the three funeral homes.
During the month-long trial, prosecutors introduced evidence that Gano had systematically allowed Biomedical Tissue Services to loot bodies without permission. Gano was convicted of 17 counts each of opening graves and body stealing, both felonies; and unlawful dissection, a misdemeanor. He was also convicted of scheming to defraud.
Gano faces up to 20 years in prison when he’s sentenced Jan. 16.
The scandal first came to light in February 2006 when the owner of Biomedical Tissue Services, Michael Mastromarino of New Jersey was indicted along with three other men by a Brooklyn grand jury for enterprise corruption in a body snatching scheme for profit.
Mastromarino, the owner of the New Jersey biomedical company and three other men including Brooklyn embalmer Joseph Nicelli and two of Mastromarino’s employees, were allegedly involved a five year, multi-million scheme during which human tissues were stolen without consent from thousands of corpses before they were buried or cremated. Mastromarino, an oral surgeon, allegedly went into the tissue business after he lost his license to practice dentistry.
The cadavers were allegedly taken from unsuspecting New York funeral homes and the bone and skin sold for transplants. It was alleged that the body of BBC journalist Alistair Cooke who died in 2004 was among those stolen.
Prosecutors said that Nicelli received up to $1,000 per body. He would deliver the corpses to an operating room at his Brooklyn funeral home where Mastromarino would then remove the parts, assisted by Crucetta, a nurse and Aldorasi.
Mastromarino, 44, then allegedly sold the tissue for up to $7,000 per body and the corpses were returned to funeral directors for burial who had no knowledge of what had transpired. Prosecutors said that in some cases where bones were taken from a body, PVC pipe was used to disguise the theft.
After allegations against Biomedical became public in October 2005, the firm ceased operations.
Mastromarino is currently serving a sentence of 18 to 54 years on the New York charges and a concurrent term of 25 to 58 years after pleading guilty to similar charges last month in Philadelphia. 12-15-08
http://www.northcountrygazette.org/2008/12/13/what_youve_got/
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