By Walter F. Roche Jr.
The sentencing of a key government witness in the criminal case stemming from a deadly fungal meningitis outbreak is likely to be delayed yet again under a joint motion filed by federal prosecutors and the witness's lawyer.
In a three-page motion filed today in U.S. District Court in Boston, the lawyer for Robert Ronzio and Assistant U.S. Attorney Amanda Strachan asked that the sentencing now scheduled for Nov. 3 be postponed indefinitely.
Ronzio's sentencing already has been postponed a half dozen times. He pleaded guilty to a single count of conspiring to defraud the federal government. He provided key prosecution testimony in multiple trials of defendants who were associated with the New England Compounding Center.
Ronzio was head of sales at NECC, the company blamed for the outbreak.
In the latest postponement motion federal prosecutors and Peter Hortsman, Ronzio's lawyer, asked that the sentencing be postponed until a pending appeal is resolved. In that appeal the prosecutors are asking the First Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn the acquittal of two of Ronzio's alleged co-conspirators, Gregory Conigiliaro and Sharon Carter.
U.S. District Judge Richard G. Stearns acquitted the two last year thus reversing guilty verdicts returned by a jury in late 2018.
Conigliaro was a vice president and part owner of NECC while Carter was director of operations. They were among 14 indicted in 2014 following a two year investigation of the deadly outbreak caused by contaminated NECC drugs.
Contact: wfrochejr999@gmail.com
, who testified in multiple trials as a government witness,
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