Democrat & Chronicle: 4 officials in body-tissue scandal indicted This is a printer friendly version from the Democrat and Chronicle: February 24, 2006 4 officials in body-tissue scandal indicted Closer look at local harvesting actions is expected Steve Orr Staff writer A criminal investigation into the Rochester-area practices of a human-tissue harvesting company is likely to heat up after the indictment of the firm's top officials Thursday in Brooklyn. Four New York City men associated with Biomedical Tissue Services were arraigned on charges they recovered tissue from cadavers in a hidden room at a Brooklyn funeral home without obtaining consent and without screening the cadavers for the presence of disease and infection. The New Jersey-based company sold the bones, skin and other tissue it recovered for use in medical procedures. The acts cited in the 122-count indictment unsealed Thursday took place in New York City, mostly in Brooklyn. But Biomedical had a branch office in suburban Rochester, harvesting tissue at several local funeral homes — and those activities are under scrutiny, officials said Thursday evening. "We have just gotten to Rochester. We are now involved in getting into the investigation in depth," said Michael Vecchione, chief of the investigative division of the Kings County District Attorney's Office. Investigators from Brooklyn were in Rochester last week gathering evidence and interviewing funeral directors and others. The Kings County DA's office and the New York Police Department are conducting the expanding probe, which Vecchione said also includes locations in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Manhattan. Because they believe the criminal enterprise was centered in Brooklyn, he said authorities there have jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute related criminal conduct that occurred in other places. Monroe County District Attorney Mike Green said his office is not investigating the matter. Company had ties here A former employee of Biomedical Tissue, Kevin Vickers, told the Democrat and Chronicle this week that as many as 50 bodies may have been harvested at local funeral homes. Vickers said he personally worked on about 20 cadavers at Profetta Funeral Chapel in Irondequoit and Webster, and Burger Funeral Home in Hilton. Vecchione identified those same two funeral homes Thursday evening as the primary locations in this area where Biomedical did its work. Vickers reiterated Thursday that he now is dismayed at what he has learned about Biomedical. He said he several times questioned whether a cadaver was suitable for donation, but company officials brushed off his concerns, saying the tissue were going to be used for research, not surgery. He said, though, that he was not aware of any improper activity while he worked for the company in 2004 and early 2005. No allegations involving the tissue company's Rochester-area activities were detailed in the Brooklyn indictment, either. But suspicion exists, Vecchione said, because of the way Biomedical conducted itself elsewhere. "None of it was legit from Day One. None of it was legit," he said. Vickers said he was "pleased that it's moving forward and that those who are allegedly guilty are being brought to task." He added that "my conscience is clear." Funeral directors at the Burger and Profetta homes did not return telephone calls seeking comment Thursday night. But Scott Batjer of the Profetta home said Wednesday that he found Biomedical to be "very professional and very legitimate here in Rochester." He said he was not aware of any forged consent forms or inaccurate medical histories, as has been alleged in Brooklyn. He declined, though, to discuss how those consents or histories were obtained. Allegations include forgery In Brooklyn, the allegation is that those sorts of forms were often forged to make it appear that family members had consented to the harvesting of loved ones' tissues, and to make the donors appear to be viable candidates for the procedure. Those documents were conveyed to the processing companies that purchased materials from Biomedical. "We had one who was 104 years old. They represented she was below the age of 85," Vecchione said. "We had some that had cancer, hepatitis, HIV. They would put down that the person died of coronary disease." The indictment asserted that most of the corpses were obtained through Joseph Nicelli, a Staten Island resident who operated a Brooklyn funeral home and a service that transported and embalmed bodies for other funeral directors. Vecchione said Nicelli would bring the bodies to a second-floor room at his funeral home, where Biomedical harvesters would remove bones and other tissue and then either cremate the remains or restore the body's appearance for a funeral so that family members wouldn't detect what had been done. Kings County District Attorney Charles Hynes, in a statement released Thursday, likened the operation to "something out of a cheap horror movie." In Rochester, Vickers said, a three-person team would be alerted by the home office that they had permission to harvest material. They would go to the funeral home and do the recovery there, often late at night. Material was packaged and shipped to Biomedical's offices in New Jersey, later being sold to larger processing companies that supply hospitals and physicians. Hundreds of people in the United States and Canada who received tissue harvested by Biomedical have been warned that the material was not adequately checked for disease, and have had to undergo testing for AIDS, hepatitis and syphilis. Several have filed lawsuits against the company. Four men charged Charged Thursday were Nicelli; Biomedical founder Michael Mastromarino, and Lee Crucetta and Christopher Aldorasi, who were accused of harvesting tissue in New York City. They were charged with enterprise corruption, forgery, grand larceny, falsifying business records, body stealing and unlawful dissection. The four men were arraigned Thursday afternoon and ordered held on bail amounts ranging from $250,000 to $1.5 million in Mastromarino's case. The men entered not guilty pleas, according to Associated Press reports. As of early Thursday evening, none had made bail. SORR@DemocratandChronicle.com Back Copyright 2005 Rochester Democrat and Chronicle. 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