Cadden Appeals Verdict and Sentence

By Walter F. Roche Jr.

A three judge panel heard arguments resently challenging the guilty verdict and the 14.5 year prison sentence imposed on the former president of a defunct drug compounding company that has been blamed for a 2012 fungal meningitis outbreak that killed over 100 patients.
Appearing before the First Circuit Court of Appeals Bruce Singal, the attorney for Barry J. Cadden, also disputed the $82 million financial penalty imposed on his client, who was president and part owner of the New England Compounding Center.
Singal said U.S. District Court Judge Richard G. Stearns erred in letting the jury hear evidence on second degree murder charges and that prejudicial evidence influenced the jury even though they acquitted him on those 25 second degree murder counts.
"The murder charges shouldn't have gone to the jury," Singal said, recounting government evidence of the painful deaths suffered by the victims and their survivors.
One of the judges noted that a majority of jurors did find Cadden guilty on some of the murder counts, but a unanimous decision was needed for conviction.
Singal also charged that evidence about NECC's standard operating procedures should have been excluded, because the charges related only to the standards set by the U.S. Pharmacopeia, a private standard setting agency.
He said the government should have been required to show evidence that each of the hospitals and clinics knew NECC had promised in its brochures that its drugs would meet the requirements of the U.S Pharmacopeia for the preparation of sterile drugs being injected into patients.
Cadden was one of 14 people connected to NECC who were indicted in late 2014 following a two year federal probe of the 2012 fungal meningitis outbreak. Caddden was convicted of racketeering, conspiracy and mail fraud. His sentence was upped to 14.5 years after an appeals panel concluded that Stearns had been too lenient in setting the sentence.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher Looney disputed Singal's claims and said there was sufficient evidence for the murder charges to be presented to the jury and Cadden knew that if the drugs (methyl prednisolone acetate) were contaminated the results would be dire.
He also noted that while Cadden's lawyers conceded that the NECC steroid caused the deaths, the prosecution did not have to accept that concession and had the right to present evidence of the painful deaths caused by NECC's tainted products.
Cadden is also facing 11 second degree murder charges in Michigan, but that case has not yet gone to trial. Contact: wfrochejr999@gmail.com