NECC Defendant Seeks Three Month Trial Delay

By Walter F. Roche Jr.

Charging that his codefendant is planning to blame him alone for actions leading to a deadly fungal meningitis outbreak, one of the men facing 25 counts of second degree murder is asking for a delay in his trial until early Spring.
Glenn Chin, citing a mountain of newly discovered evidence, submitted the request today for the delay in his Jan. 2 trial on charges stemming from the 2012 outbreak which sickened 778 patients, killing 77 of them.
Stating that his codefendant, Barry Cadden, "is more than willing to save himself at the expense of his employee," the motion  charges that Cadden will be attempting to "place the blame solely and exclusively on Glenn Chin."
Cadden and Chin were charged with the second degree murder and racketeering  charges in late 2014 following a lengthy federal investigation of the New England Compounding Center, the defunct Framingham, Mass. company blamed for shipping thousands of fungus riddled steroids to health providers across the country.
The three-page motion charges that while Cadden, part owner of NECC, has had access to thousands of documents from a civil case for four years, Chin's lawyer only learned of their existence in October.
"Cadden will use these documents to show that Cadden had nothing to do with the alleged contamination of the products manufactured by NECC," the motion states.
The split between Cadden and Chin, NECC's supervisory pharmacists, comes only days after lawyers for the two defendants filed a joint motion seeking to force federal prosecutors to disclose evidence that would justify the second degree murder charges.
Filed by his attorney Stephen Weymouth, Chin's motion today also cites "12 million pages of discovery" provided by prosecutors, including 3.1 million in 15 increments over the past year alone. In addition prosecutors produced 70 grand jury transcripts.
But it is the newly discovered documents from a repository created in related civil litigation that the motion says "are crucial to Chin especially in the context of what Cadden intends to do at trial."
The motion charges that Cadden will "use every single document in his possession" to lay the blame on Chin.
"The fact that Cadden has had these documents for four years, while Chin is reviewing the documents for the first time is not fair and places Chin in a very difficult position," the motion states, adding that Chin now must defend himself "in this life and death case" facing not only the federal government but also his former boss.
The evidence in the civil case, according to the motion, includes testimony from dozens of witnesses including David Kessler, former head of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
As the motion notes, Cadden had access to the civil trial documents because he was one of the original defendants. His attorneys recently sought and obtained permission from the judge in the civil case to use the documents in his defense against criminal charges.
Weymouth stated in the motion that he had not discussed his request with federal prosecutors, but he expected them to oppose it.
U.S. District Judge Richard J. Stearns, who is presiding over the case, indicated when setting the Jan. 2 trial date that he would not be receptive to any further delays.
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