Key Outbreak Witness Hammered

By Walter F. Roche Jr.

BOSTON, Mass.-A key prosecution witness was hammered today by the lawyer for his former boss in the trial of a drug compounder charged with racketeering and second degree murder.
For some two hours in U.S. District Court, Joseph Connolly, a pharmacy technician, once employed by the New England Compounding Center, was questioned on everything from his motivation for agreeing to testify for the prosecution to the details of a 1995 auto accident that left him in a coma for five days.
Questioning Connolly was Robert Shekatoff, part of the defense team for Glenn A. Chin, 49, who faces the racketeering, mail fraud and 25 counts of second degree murder.
Before the cross examination Connolly, under questioning by Assistant U.S. Attorney Amanda Strachan, detailed repeated instances in which NECC shipped drugs that were outdated and  untested and how they were instructed to generate fictitious reports about environmental monitoring at the company's Framingham, Mass. facility.
NECC has been blamed by state and federal regulators for causing a deadly 2012 fungal meningitis outbreak that took the lives of 76 patients in 20 states. Chin has been charged with second degree murder in 25 of those deaths, including five in Tennessee.
Co-defendant Barry Cadden, who was NECC's president and chief pharmacist, is already serving a nine year sentence following his conviction of racketeering and mail fraud charges. He was acquitted on the murder charges.
Shekatoff repeatedly asked Connolly why he didn't just quit his NECC job if he was so appalled by what was going on there.
"But you didn't resign," said Shekatoff, after one testy exchange.
"I should have," said Connolly.
Connolly said he had two small children at the time and didn't even consider leaving the job.
Connolly did describe how he and other NECC employees were called into a break room in early October 2012 and told the company was shutting down because five Tennessee patients already had died after being treated with spinal steroids from NECC.
Though they were told the shutdown was temporary, it soon became permanent.
Earlier Connolly testified about how Chin came to be in charge of the two clean rooms where high risk drugs, like the methylprednisolone acetate, were prepared and placed in vials.
Connolly said it was Chin who actually compounded the spinal steroid.
Though Connolly insisted he had no opinion about Chin when he was promoted to oversee the cleanrooms, Shekatoff asked whether Connolly didn't share the opinion of two fellow workers who immediately questioned Chin's competence.
Under Shekatoff's questioning, Connolly acknowledged that he and some of his NECC colleagues held weekly get-togethers.
"You thought you were the smartest man in the room," Shekatoff asserted.
Connolly responded that he didn't think so, though he did eventually conclude Chin was unqualified.
Shekatoff also questioned Connolly about' statements he made to federal investigators when the outbreak investigation first began.
He said Connolly told the officials from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that the three most likely causes of the outbreak were Chin, non sterile stoppers used in preparing the steroid or vials that were not properly prepared.
Connolly said he named Chin because it was Chin who actually compounded the methylprednisolone acetate.
The cross examination will continue on Monday.