2 NECC Defendants Sentenced

By Walter F. Roche Jr.

Two former pharmacists for a drug compounding firm that caused a deadly fungal meningitis outbreak have been sentenced following their conviction on mail fraud and related charges and while one will serve a prison sentence, the other was given eight months of home confinement.
In two separate sessions before U.S. District Judge Richard G. Stearns Gene Svirskiy was given a 2.5 year prison sentence while Christopher Leary was sentenced to eight months of home confinement and two years of probation.
The two licensed pharmacists were among five former employees of the now defunct New England Compounding Center who were found guilty late last year following an eight week trial in U.S. District Court in Boston, Mass.
Svirskiy was convicted of racketeering, conspiracy, mail fraud and violations of the Food Drug and Cosmetic Act (FDCA). Leary was convicted of three counts of mail fraud and violations of the FDCA.
Federal prosecutors had recommended a 6.5 year sentence for Svirskiy and a two year to 30 month jail sentence for Leary.
The charges stemmed from a two year probe of the 2012 fungal meningitis outbreak which federal prosecutors have described as the worst outbreak ever to be caused by a prescription drug. Over 100 patients injected with NECC steroids have died and over 700 have been sickened.
Svirskiy and Leary, however, were not charged in connection with the contaminated steroids that caused the outbreak. They were charged for their roles in producing other drugs, drugs that were mislabeled, misbranded and untested.
Those drugs included a cancer drug called methotrexate, a subpotent eye block or numbing agent used in eye surgeries and an antibiotic used in surgeries and wound care. The drugs had been shipped to health facilities in California, Florida, New York and Boston, Mass.
Leary and Svirskiy were among 14 indicted by a federal grand jury in late 2014 following a two year probe of the fungal meningitis outbreak. Two of the 14, Barry J. Cadden and Glenn Chin, already are serving prison sentences following their conviction on racketeering, mail fraud and violations of the FDCA. They were both cleared of racketeering second degree murder charges.
Cadden is serving a nine year sentence, while Chin is serving an eight year sentence at separate federal prisons in Pennsylvania.
Only one of the 14 indicted was cleared of all charges.
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