Judge Mulls Motion to Sever NECC Criminal Cases

By Walter F. Roche Jr.

The two key defendants in the criminal case stemming from a deadly fungal meningitis outbreak could be tried separately under a sealed motion now being considered by a federal judge.
Records in U.S. District Court in Boston, Mass. show a motion was filed to have Barry Cadden and Glenn Chin tried separately. Cadden and Chin are facing 25 counts of second degree murder under an indictment issued nearly two years ago.
The two are scheduled to be tried together in early January before U.S. District Judge Richard G. Stearns.
Though the two had agreed to a joint trial, papers filed recently by Chin's lawyer, charge that Chin had only recently learned that Cadden planned to blame him and him alone for the deaths.
Earlier this week Cadden's lawyers filed a motion to sever the two cases, but the motion was filed under seal.
After a hearing today, Stearns took the matter under advisement.
Chin and Cadden were among 14 people connected to the New England Compounding Center to be indicted following a two year probe of the deadly 2012 fungal meningitis outbreak. Two defendants already have entered guilty pleas to vastly reduced charges. Two others had charges dismissed.
The remaining defendants are scheduled to go on trial in April.
The outbreak sickened 778 patients who were injected with fungus laden methylprednisolone acetate, shipped in thousands of vials from NECC's Framingham, Mass. facility to health providers across the country.
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