Chin Fights Restitution and Forfeiture

By Walter F. Roche Jr.

The pharmacist convicted of racketeering and mail fraud for his role in a deadly 2012 outbreak is asking a federal judge to vastly reduce or eliminate government proposed restitution and forfeiture orders totaling some $82.6 million.
In separate filings in U.S. District Court in Boston, Mass. the lawyer for Glenn A. Chin argued that a  forfeiture order of $611,000 and a restitution order for $82 million sought by federal prosecutors were not justified.
Citing rulings already made in his case and that of co-defendant Barry J. Cadden, Chin's lawyer Stephen J. Weymouth, said any forfeiture order should be based on a two year period, not the six years proposed by the U.S. Attorney.
"The government failed to prove that 100 per cent of Mr. Chin's compensation was derived from racketeering activity," the 14-page motion states. The government proposal was based on the total compensation paid to Chin from 2006 to 2012.
Chin was convicted of the racketeering and mail fraud charges stemming from a grand jury probe of the 2012 fungal meningitis outbreak that sickened at least 778 patients killing 76 of them. Chin was a supervising pharmacist at the New England Compounding Center, the company blamed for the outbreak.
Chin argued that "the vast majority" of the drugs produced at NECC during Chin's tenure were not defective and caused no harm to medical providers or their patients.
Noting that U.S. District Judge Richard G. Stearns already has ruled that only $1.4 million worth of drugs produced by NECC were proven to be tainted, the motion states that any forfeiture should be limited to that total and not the $59.8 million in NECC's gross receipts.
The same percentage, 2.34 per cent should be applied to Chin's salary during that period, the motion adds, also arguing that the forfeiture should be limited to the actual amount Chin received after taxes were deducted.
The motion states that the $611,000 government forfeiture proposal would be "vastly disproportionate to the gravity of the defendant's offense.
Chin's motion recommends a forfeiture of $5,766.
In a separate motion, Weymouth said that the prosecution's proposal for an $82 million restitution order was based on the assumption that the victims included patients injected with the tainted drugs. However, he noted that under the racketeering law, Stearns already has ruled that the victims were the medical providers who bought contaminated drugs from NECC and not their patients.
"The government produced no evidence of a causal link between any particular conduct of Mr. Chin that caused the deadly fungus to grow," the filing states.
He also argued that because there were so many victims and the issues so complex it would be impossible to compute the precise amount of restitution,
Noting that Chin is 49-years-old, has two dependent children and has no likelihood of being able to return to his profession, the motion requests that if a restitution order is issued it should be limited to "nominal periodic payments."
Chin has already been sentenced to an eight year jail term, while Cadden is already serving a nine-year sentence.
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