Prosecution Witness Hammered at Chin Trial

By Walter F. Roche Jr.

BOSTON-The head of quality control at a defunct drug compounding firm said that the company president sent a completely falsified report to state regulators even as a deadly fungal meningitis outbreak caused by the company was unfolding.
Testifying at the racketeering and second degree murder trial of supervising pharmacist Glenn A. Chin, the witness, Annette Robinson, said the report purporting to show nearly perfect scores on environmental tests was falsified and that despite her position she was never even shown the document before it was sent the Massachusetts Board of Pharmacy.
During questioning by Assistant U.S. Attorney Amanda Strachan, Robinson said she was warned by a fellow worker at the New England Compounding Center not to tell Chin that she had inadvertently touched something she shouldn't have in a clean or sterile room where injectable drugs were being prepared.
"He'll throw you under the bus," Robinson said she was told.
Robinson subsequently underwent more than an hour of cross examination by one of Chin's lawyers, who asked if she didn't have a personal grudge against Chin. Robinson said she didn't know, couldn't remember or didn't understand many of Robert L. Sheketoff's questions.
Robinson's testimony, which spanned two days, comes in the racketeering, conspiracy and second degree murder trial of Chin, 49. He was one of 14 charged following a two-year probe of the 2012 fungal meningitis outbreak, which took the lives of 76 patients in 20 states. Co-defendant Barry Cadden already is serving a nine-year prison sentence following his March conviction on racketeering, conspiracy and mail fraud charges.
It was Cadden, Robinson testified, who sent the false report to the Massachusetts board on the results of environmental testing at NECC's facilities.
Under cross examination Sheketoff zeroed in on Robinson's earlier testimony that Chin was present when Cadden said that there was a test that the company should have been performing all along but hadn't"
When Robinson said Chin was "probably there," Sheketoff asked what probably means.
"I don't know if he was there or not," she responded.
He also questioned her about the fact that she was testifying under a grant of immunity and that she had a lawyer representing her when she was first questioned by federal prosecutors.
Robinson later stated that the lawyer was provided by NECC and Cadden.
As she did at Cadden's trial, Robinson wept while testifying that she feared that she might have caused the outbreak because she had inadvertently touched a piece of equipment in the clean room where sterile drugs were prepared.
"Why didn't you just clean it? Why didn't you tell anyone?" he asked.
Sheketoff also questioned why Cadden would have ever hired her for the quality control position when she had no background or training for the job.
"He thought that I could do it," she responded.
Contact: wfrochejr999@gmail.com