A pharmacy technician from the New England Compounding Center in Framingham, Mass., has agreed to plead guilty to a single count of mail fraud. Scott M. Connolly worked at the New England Compounding Center from January 2010 to August 2012.
The NECC closed in 2012 after a fungal meningitis outbreak caused by tainted steroid injections killed 64 people in nine states and sickened more than 700 others. Glenn Chin, the supervisory pharmacist in charge of the cleanroom; and Barry J. Cadden, former co-owner and president of the NECC; were each tried on charges of second-degree murder in 2017. Both Chin and Cadden were acquitted of the murder charges, but were sentenced to prison (eight years and nine years, respectively) for racketeering and fraud charges.
Read more: Cleanroom Supervisor in Meningitis Case Sentenced to Eight Years: https://www.rdmag.com/news/2018/01/cleanroom-supervisor-meningitis-case-sentenced-eight-years
Connolly is one of the lesser-known defendants in the case. Federal prosecutors allege that Connolly, among other defendants cited in the NECC case, “devised and intended to devise a scheme and artifice to defraud NECC’s customers and the patients of those customers.” Connolly was hired by the NECC around March 2010, where he was assigned to a cleanroom where he made drugs for hospitals to use in heart surgeries. However, Connolly had already surrendered his state pharmacy technician license in January 2009 following disciplinary action.
Connolly was under the supervision of Chin, Cadden, and another licensed pharmacist at the NECC, Gene Svirskiy. Connolly used Cadden’s username and password when operating equipment, and the indictment alleges that his supervisors were unaware that he was working without a license. Connolly also did not perform the validation tests undertaken by other pharmacy technicians who worked in NECC’s cleanrooms.
Svirskiy and Connolly are among those who are scheduled to go to trial in October for mail fraud and racketeering charges.
Read more: Cleanroom QC Agent: Pharmacist Told Me to “[Expletive] Off”: https://www.rdmag.com/blog/2017/10/cleanroom-qc-agent-pharmacist-told-me-expletive
