NECC Prosecutors Strike Back

By Walter F. Roche Jr.

Charging that defense attorneys cherry picked a few sustained objections from two prior trials, federal prosecutors are asking a judge to reject a move to limit their questions and comments in the upcoming trial of eight former employees of the company blamed for a deadly fungal meningitis outbreak.
In two filings today in U.S. District Court in Boston, Mass. Assistant U.S. Attorneys George Varghese and Amanda Strachan asked U.S. District Richard G. Stearns to reject motions filed by attorneys for the defendants.
In those motions the defendants asked Stearns to rule in advance of the October trial to limit the conduct of the prosecution.
Strachan and Varghese also asked Stearns to reject the request to hold a hearing in advance of the trial in which prosecutors would be required to lay out the evidence of two conspiracy charges brought against some of the defendants.
Charging that such a proffer hearing would clash with prior rulings issued in the district, the filing charges that the co-conspirators are charged with producing drugs that were not sterile, not tested and "manufactured in dangerously filthy conditions."
The defendants in motions filed earlier this week also cited comments made by prosecutors in the trials of two co-defendants, Barry Cadden and Glenn Chin.
In the response Strachan and Varghese charged that defense attorneys "cherry picked a few examples' of sustained objections" and argued that"none of its direct examination practices were objectionable.
In other pre-trial filings, attorneys for Kathy Chin and and Michelle Thomas argued that they could not get fair trial if prosecutors are allowed to present evidence of injuries and death.
They stated that the two "had nothing to do" with the clean room where sterile drugs were prepared.
Similar arguments were made by attorneys for Gregory Conigliaro.
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