Conigliaro Money Can be Disclosed

By Walter F. Roche Jr.

Federal prosecutors will be able to tell jurors about the estimated $20 million in profits collected by the vice president of a drug company blamed for a deadly 2012 fungal meningitis outbreak.
U.S. District Judge Richard G. Stearns has denied a motion by Gregory Conigliaro's lawyers to bar the prosecutors from disclosing the amount earned by Conigliaro in his upcoming trial on conspiracy charges.
Conigliaro is one of six defendants going on trial Monday in U.S. District Court in Boston, Mass. on charges ranging from racketeering to mail fraud.
The six were employees of the New England Compounding Center, the company that sold thousands of vials of fungus laden medications to health facilities across the country. The outbreak killed 76 patients among nearly 800 that were sickened.
In a motion filed earlier this week Conigliaro's lawyers asked Stearns to block prosecutors from disclosing how much money he had earned from NECC charging that the disclosure "would improperly taint the jury's ability to be fair."
In a brief ruling issued shortly after the motion was filed Stearns denied the request.
Though full details of Conigliaro's earnings have not been disclosed, documents and testimony in the trial of a co-defendant, Barry Cadden, show that Gregory Conigliaro likely earned $20 million in profits alone from the New England Compounding Center and a related firm, Ameridose, over the six year period ending in 2012.
Cadden and his wife owned 35 percent of the two companies and other court filings show Gregory Conigliaro had a 10 percent stake in the same two firms. Cadden and his wife, according to testimony, earned $72 million over the six year period from their 35 percent share. A 10 percent share would thus equal a little over $20 million.
That figure does not include any salary earned by Conigliaro during that same time period.
Conigliaro's lawyer had not only asked that the earnings be kept secret, but also that his motion to seal the records be shielded from public view lest the details be made public by the media and then to the jurors hearing the case.
"This evidence is completely irrelevant" to the single charge against Conigliaro, " attorney Daniel Rabinovitz argued.
Stearns denied the motion without comment.
Opening arguments in the case against Conigliaro and five others are scheduled for 9 a.m. Monday.
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