Prosecutors Disclose Expert Witnesses

By Walter F. Roche Jr.

Federal prosecutors have issued new details on the expert witnesses they intend to call in the upcoming trial of six former employees of the drug compounding firm that caused a deadly national outbreak.
The filing in U.S. District Court in Boston, Mass. shows the upcoming October trial will repeat much of the evidence and testimony evoked in the trials of two other defendants, Barry Cadden and Glenn Chin, who are now serving prison terms.
"The expert disclosures the government provided to the remaining defendants is virtually identical to the disclosure provided to defendants Cadden and Chin before their trials,"the report by the two prosecuting attorneys states.
The witnesses include officials of the federal Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, officials of a private testing laboratory and experts on the U.S. Pharmacopeia, the non-profit that sets standards for the drug industry and other health care providers.
The six scheduled to go on trial next month were all employees of the New England Compounding Center, the company blamed for the 2012 outbreak of fungal meningitis.
But unlike Chin and Cadden, none of the six has been charged in connection with the deaths of patient. Cadden and Chin were charged with second degree murder in 25 of the 76 deaths, but two separate juries cleared them of those charges.
They were convicted on racketeering, conspiracy and fraud charges. Cadden is serving a nine year sentence while Chin was given an eight year sentence.
The witness list includes Stacey Degarmo of the FDA, one of the first federal investigators to go to NECC's Framingham, Mass. offices, Eric Kastango, an expert on the U.S. Pharmocopeia, and Mary Brandt of the CDC. All three testified in the prior trials.
Listed as a possible witness was Janet Woodcock from the FDA. Woodcock didn't testify at the prior trials but her testimony from a congressional hearing was read into the record.
Still other include a New York state Health Department official, Sudha Charurvedi, who testified about testing done in her agency of an NECC product. Several FDA laboratory employees were listed. They testified at the prior trials on test results they conducted on NECC products.
In the filing today Assistant U.S. Attorneys Amanda Strachan and George Varghese cited the extensive record of prior testimony by the experts readily available in trial transcripts.
"No further disclosure is warranted or remotely necessary," the filing states.
The six face charges ranging from racketeering to conspiracy to defrauding the FDA.
The six facing trial are Gene Svirskiy, Christopher Leary, Joseph Evanosky, Sharon Carter, Alla Stepanets and Gregory Conigliaro,
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