AG Seeks Rejection of Cadden Appeal

By Walter F. Roche Jr.

Citing direct and circumstantial evidence, the Michigan Attorney General is asking the state Supreme Court to deny the appeal of a former pharmacist and drug company executive charged with second degree murder in the deaths of 11 Michigan residents.
In a 31-page filing today in the state Supreme Court Attorney General Dana Nessel charged that Barry J. Cadden's actions and inactions led to the clean room at the New England Compounding Center running out of control and "creating wonton and willful disregard" for the liklihood that death or serious injury would result.
Cadden was the president and part owner of NECC, the now defunct Massachusetts company blamed for a nationwide fungal meningitis outbreak that ultimately took the lives of 100 patients and sickened more than 700 others.
Both Cadden and Glenn Chin, who was a supervising phamracist at NECC, have been charged with second degree murder in a case brought by the state Attorney General. Both defendants contend there was insufficent evidence for a Lvingston County judge to bind them over for a jury trial on the charges.
In the motion filed today prosecutors cited the testimony of NECC employees who described how in 2011 and 2012 the company abandoned sanitation standards in order to meet increased production demands.
In one case drugs were shipped on the day they were produced, before they had even been tested.
Nessel's plea to have the appeal denied notes that similar claims of insufficient evidence already have been denied at every step in lower courts. As to the claim that prosecutors failed to identify a single act of Cadden's that caused the deaths, the motion states, "The record reflects several actions by Cadden which led to the clean room (where the drugs were produced) being out of control." Charging there was a willful disregard for the liklihood that the actions would cause death or serious bodily injury, the motion concludes that the evidence shows Cadden was not only responsible for but also complicit in the clean room's deterioration. Contact: wfrochejr999@gmail.com