Cadden Reports to Western PA Facility

By Walter F. Roche Jr.

Pharmacist Barry J.Cadden has reported to a federal prison in Western Pennsylvania to begin serving a nine year sentence following his conviction on 57 counts of racketeering, conspiracy and mail fraud.
Cadden, the one time president of a now defunct Massachusetts drug compounding firm, was sentenced in June by U.S. District Judge Richard G. Stearns. Federal prosecutors had sought
a 45-year prison term and Cadden had asked for a three year sentence.
Cadden's 10 week trial ended on March 22 when the jury returned a split verdict. While convicting him of racketeering and mail fraud, the jurors acquitted the 50-year-old pharmacist on 25 counts of second degree murder.
FCI Loretto, located near Altoona, Penn., is a low security prison which includes a prison camp. Cadden was assigned to the prison section of the facility not the prison camp.
Cadden was one of 14 employees and owners of the New England Compounding Center who were indicted in late 2014 following a two year federal probe of the deadly 2012 fungal meningitis outbreak. Fungus contaminated drugs from NECC caused the outbreak which sickened 778 patients, killing at least 76 of them.
Cadden had asked to serve his sentence at the federal prison near Ayer, Mass., less than an hour from his Wrentham, Mass. home. Loretto, PA is some 490 miles from Wrentham, Mass.
Cadden has already served notice that he is appealing his conviction.
Codefendant Glenn Chin is scheduled to go on trial in September. Chin, like Cadden was charged with 25 counts of second degree murder, along with racketeering and mail fraud charges.
Other defendants are expected to be tried after the Chin trial has ended.
Stearns has issued orders limiting the length of the Chin trial to a little over a month, in an apparent effort to avert a repeat of the 10-week marathon Cadden trial.
The Loretto federal prison, once the site of a Catholic seminary, has had some well known inmates including John Rowland, a former governor of Connecticut, who was convicted on corruption charges. Others have included a New York assemblyman and a New England mafia boss.