Cadden Seeks Acquittal or New Trial

By Walter F. Roche Jr.

The former head of a drug compounder blamed for a deadly fungal meningitis outbreak is asking for acquittal or a new trial on the racketeering and mail fraud charges on which he was recently convicted.
The motion charges that the government's "futile effort" to charge him with second degree murder, tainted and prejudiced the jury that convicted him.
The case was "tainted by the improper presentation of murders, death and suffering in support of charges that should not have been brought," the three-page motion states.
The 12 member Massachusetts jury convicted Cadden last month on 58 counts of racketeering, conspiracy and mail fraud, among other charges, but acquitted him on 25 counts of second degree murder.
Cadden was president and part owner of the now defunct New England Compounding Center, the Framingham, Mass. firm blamed for the 2012 fungal meningitis outbreak that sickened 778 patients in 20 states. Some 77 of those patients died.
In his motion Cadden said the tainted evidence need not even have been presented because his lawyers conceded from the outset that methylprednisolone acetate from NECC caused the deaths.
That evidence, the motion states, "would not have been admitted in a fraud case."
Charging that the prosecution's evidence was "inaccurate and misleading," the motion charges that it had "the cumulative impact of unfairly and irrevocably tainting the jury in its consideration of the non-murder charges."
The motion asks the presiding federal judge, Richard G. Stearns, to either acquit Cadden of the charges or grant a new trial on the non-murder charges.
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