By Walter F. Roche Jr.
Some seven years after an obscure Massachusetts drug compounding firm began shipping thousands of vials of a contaminated drug to health facilities across the country, two former employees of that firm are about to go on trial on charges stemming from a two-year probe of their former employer.
Jury selection and opening arguments are scheduled for Monday in U.S. District Court in Boston in the trial of the two pharmacists once employed by the long defunct New England Compounding Center. Kathy Chin and Michelle Thomas are charged with violations of the Food Drug and Cosmetic Act.
They are the last of 14 defendants to face trial following a December 2014 indictment by the grand jury convened in the wake of a deadly fungal meningitis outbreak. Several of the original defendants have entered guilty pleas and await sentencing. Two already are serving federal prison terms following their conviction on racketeering, conspiracy and mail fraud charges. One of those is Glenn Chin, the husband of Kathy Chin.
Kathy Chin's lawyer has asked U.S District Judge Richard G. Stearns to bar any mention in the upcoming trial of her relation to her convicted husband.
That filing is but one of nearly a dozen filed in behalf of Chin and Thomas seeking to limit testimony and evidence in a trial that is expected to last some two weeks, far less than the three prior marathon sessions.
In a 14-page response today federal prosecutors asked Stearns to deny all the defense motions calling them "a hodgepodge of incorrect statements of law," based on "mistaken assumptions."
"There is no basis to exclude any of the evidence challenged by the defendants," the prosecutors stated.
Many of defendants motions center on the fact that Chin and Thomas are not charged with playing any role in the production of the drugs that ultimately led to the deaths of over 100 patients.
Instead the two, both Massachusetts licensed pharmacists, were assigned to check hundreds of drug orders being sent out to NECC's customers against the orders placed with NECC.
Prosecutors argue that the two played the role of "verifying pharmacists," charged with verifying the accuracy of the orders before shipment. Furthermore, prosecutors argue, "dispensing drugs without valid prescriptions was an intentional business practice at NECC."
Prosecutors dispute the contention that mentioning the relationship between Glenn and Kathy Chin will prejudice or inflame jurors and, they say, jurors must hear about the clearly fictitious names on the orders being shipped from NECC..
In three prior trials prosecutors have repeatedly pointed out that dozens of patient names on the drug orders were patently false. They included Disney characters, Donald Trump, Filet O' Fish, to name a few.
Prosecutors in their pretrial filings have indicated they intend to call as witnesses officials of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Massachusetts Board of Pharmacy. Also on the list are former NECC employees including Robert Ronzio, a former NECC sales chief, and Scott Connolly, an unlicensed pharmacy technician, both of who have entered guilty pleas and await sentencing.
Lawyers for the two defendants have argued that their clients were "low level employees" and not assigned to check the validity of patient names.
In fact they have asked the judge to bar the use of adjectives "fake" or "fictitious" in reference to patient names.
The prosecution filing, however, concludes that the six drug shipments on which the charges against the two are based "were not accidents or mistakes," but an intentional unlawful practice.
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