Prosecutors Charge Cadden With End Run

By Walter F. Roche Jr.

Federal prosecutors are charging that a primary defendant in the fungal meningitis outbreak case is trying to do an end run around established rules for criminal proceedings to gain access to thousands of pages of protected documents in a separate civil case.
In a filing in U.S. District Court in Boston, Mass., two assistant U.S. Attorneys said that Barry Cadden, the top pharmacist and part owner of a defunct drug compounding firm, should not be allowed to pore through thousands of documents compiled in separate civil litigation stemming from the deadly 2012 outbreak.
Cadden's lawyers had filed a motion recently seeking access to the records of the civil cases, stating that they were necessary to prepare for his criminal trial scheduled for Jan. 5, 2017.
Cadden, who was part owner of the New England Compounding Center in Framingham, Mass. is facing a 97 count indictment charging him with crimes ranging from mail and wire fraud to racketeering to 25 counts of second degree murder.
The filing by Assistant U.S. Attorneys George Varghese and Amanda Strachan charges that Cadden is attempting to use the civil discovery process of the (civil litigation) as an end run around the federal rules of criminal procedure applicable to his criminal case."
Noting that a federal judge previously turned down his request to access some of the documents, prosecutors also argued that giving Cadden the requested access would give him an unfair advantage over the 11 remaining codefendants in the case.
"There is no legal or factual basis for providing such an advantage to a single criminal defendant," the filing states.
Prosecutors also charged that even after he was dismissed from the civil cases, Cadden "continued to attend depositions, for the sole purpose of gleaning information for use in his criminal case."
At issue are documents that include the medical records of hundreds of victims of the 2012 fungal meningitis outbreak that have been amassed by attorneys for outbreak victims.
Stating that Cadden's defense team already has been provided over 12 million pages of records, prosecutors said Cadden himself has produced no documents for the repository that contains "records and documents far beyond the scope of the criminal trial."
Cadden also has filed a motion in his criminal case seeking disclosure of the instructions that were given to the grand jurors who eventually indicted him.
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