By Walter F. Roche Jr.
Federal officials have seized some $18.3 million in additional assets from the owners of a defunct Massachusetts drug compounding company blamed in the deaths of 64 patients.
Seizure orders, which were unsealed Tuesday, show that the funds were taken from the bank and investment accounts of members of the Cadden and Conigliaro families, owners of the defunct New England Compounding Center.
The funds are in addition to nearly $50 million from the two families under a settlement for a pending bankruptcy case. Overall some $136 million is expected to be available for victims of the 2012 fungal meningitis outbreak which sickened or killed 751 patients.
According to Boston U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz the seizures included $1.5 million from three accounts held by Barry J. Cadden, who was indicted recently on charges of second degree murder in the deaths of 25 of the 64 victims.
Funds totaling $16.8 million held by Carla Conigliaro and her husband Douglas also were frozen.
In the recent indictment Carla and Douglas Conigliaro were charged with violating a bankruptcy court order freezing their assets.
The court records unsealed Tuesday charge that the Conigliaros transferred millions of dollars the same week NECC surrendered its state license and shortly before the company filed for bankruptcy.
The Conigliaros and Cadden were among 14 indicted by a federal grand jury in December following a more than two year investigation of the 2012 outbreak, which has been blamed on fungus tainted spinal steroids shipped by NECC to health care providers across the country.
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