‘Strikes on the very essence…’: Ex-manager at Harvard Medical School indicted for trafficking, promoting physique components

By Reuters:

The former morgue supervisor at Harvard Medical School was amongst 5 individuals indicted by a grand jury on Wednesday over allegations they stole and offered physique components from cadavers donated to the varsity, federal prosecutors mentioned.

Cedric Lodge, 55, who was fired from his job on May 6, and the opposite defendants had been accused of finishing up a black market physique components scheme from roughly 2018 to 2022, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania mentioned in a press release. One of the defendants lives in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

Prosecutors mentioned Lodge, who was employed by Harvard in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1995, would at instances let potential consumers into the varsity’s morgue to look at cadavers and choose what components to purchase. The consumers principally resold the physique components, prosecutors mentioned.

A sixth particular person was beforehand charged in Arkansas in the identical investigation on suspicion of stealing physique components from a mortuary she labored for, prosecutors mentioned. Reuters has beforehand reported on abuses within the physique commerce enterprise.

It was not instantly clear if Lodge, who was arrested by the FBI on Wednesday in line with ABC News citing the FBI, or the others indicted, who included Lodge’s spouse, had authorized illustration. The FBI didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark.

“Some crimes defy understanding,” U.S. Attorney Gerard Karam mentioned in a press release. “The theft and trafficking of human remains strikes at the very essence of what makes us human.”

People whose physique components had been offered had volunteered their stays for use to teach medical professionals, Karam mentioned.

The Harvard Medical School cooperated with the investigation, he mentioned.

George Daley, the dean of the Harvard Faculty of Medicine, mentioned in a press release to the varsity’s group on Wednesday that “we are appalled to learn that something so disturbing could happen on our campus.”

Daley mentioned Harvard Medical School, which first realized of the allegations in March, was looking its information, notably logs displaying when donor stays had been despatched to be cremated and when Lodge was on campus, to attempt to decide which donors’ physique components could have been trafficked.

Harvard’s workplace of media relations mentioned it couldn’t present extra info, citing the prison investigation.