One NECC Appeal Denied

By Walter F. Roche Jr.

A federal judge today denied the appeal of a former worker at a now defunct drug compounding company who was convicted late last year on six counts of violating the federal Food Drug and Cosmetic Act.
In a six-page ruling U.S. District Judge Richard G. Stearns rejected all three of the arguments raised in Alla Stepanets appeal. Stearns said higher court rulings barred him from granting the appeals.
Stepanets was a pharmacist at the New England Compounding Center, the company blamed for a nationwide fungal meningitis outbreak. She was one of five former NECC employees found guilty following a 10 and a half week trial ending on Dec. 13, 2018.
Gregory Conigliaro, who was a 10 percent owner of NECC and a company vice president, has also appealed his conviction on a single charge of conspiracy to defraud the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Both Conigliaro's appeal, along with that of a third defendant, Sharon Carter, were the subject of a hearing earlier this week, but Stearns has yet to rule on those matters.
Stepanets was employed at NECC as a pharmacist and her duties included checking outgoing orders. She had argued that her job was simply clerical, but the First Circuit Court of Appeals already had rejected that argument and overruled Stearns dismissal of some of her charges.
"While I remain sympathetic to the argument," Stearns wrote, "Because the First Circuit ruling is definitional and not subject to differential fact-finding at trial, I am bound by the law of the case doctrine."
Stearns cited a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in denying Stepanets' parallel request for a new trial.
Noting that granting a new trial is rarely used, Stearns said until the Supreme Court reverses itself he remains bound by their precedent.
Stepanets is scheduled for sentencing on May 8.