Sentencing Set for NECC Star Witness

By Walter F. Roche Jr.

A federal judge has set an Aug. 8 sentencing date for a key prosecution witness in the criminal trials stemming from a deadly 2012 fungal meningitis outbreak.
In an order issued today in U.S. District Court in Boston, Mass., U.S. District Judge Richard G. Stearns set the date for Robert A. Ronzio, who has entered a guilty plea to a single count of conspiracy to defraud the federal government.
Ronzio, under the terms of a plea agreement with federal prosecutors, testified in a series of trials against his former colleagues at the New England Compounding Center, the company that caused the outbreak.
Specifically Ronzio, who was NECC's sales chief, entered a guilty plea to the charge that he conspired to defraud the U.S. Food and Drug Administration by agreeing to let NECC's customers ship initial drug orders without patient specific prescriptions and take other actions "to make it appear to federal and state regulators that NECC was dispensing drugs pursuant to valid patient-specific prescriptions when in fact it was not."
The North Providence, R.I. resident testified as a prosecution witness in the trials of former NECC President and part owner Barry J. Cadden and Glenn Chin, NECC's supervising pharmacist. He also testified in two subsequent trials with multiple defendants.
The penalty for the conspiracy charge Ronzio admitted committing can carry a penalty of up to five years in prison, but prosecutors are expected to recommend a much less severe penalty based on his cooperation.
In other action today, Stearns re-set the sentencing dates for Kathy Chin and Michelle L. Thomas, who were recently found guilty in a four-day trial. Chin, the spouse of Glenn Chin, will be sentenced Aug. 8 at 10 a.m. Thomas will be sentenced a day later at the same time.
The two NECC pharmacists were convicted for violations of the federal Food Drug and Cosmetic Act when they okayed prescriptions for patients with obviously fake names.
The defendants were among 14 indicted in 2014 following a two-year investigation of the fungal meningitis outbreak caused by NECC drugs contaminated with deadly fungi.
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