Stolen body parts gang ringleader admits guilt

THE head of a body-snatching ring, responsible for stealing the bones of veteran broadcaster Alistair Cooke, pleaded guilty yesterday after a deal with US prosecutors.

Judge John Walsh heard medical supplies boss Michael Mastromarino and his associates raked in more than $4.6 million (€2.9m) from the activity.

Mastromarino netted the money for his role in hacking up hundreds of corpses before forging donor consent forms and selling the parts for transplant.

The 44-year-old former dentist pleaded guilty at Brooklyn Supreme Court yesterday. He is expected to be sentenced to at least 18 years in return for co-operating with authorities.

Earlier this month, Justice Albert Tomei ordered prosecutors to honour a plea bargain reached in January.

He told the court he was “not here to have showtrials” but to “do justice” when prosecutors tried to renege on the deal after discovering the extent of Mastromarino’s crimes.

Some of the material taken illegally was implanted into patients who underwent orthopaedic surgery in Britain, medical regulators found.

A British firm, Plus Orthopedics, bought tissue and bone from Regeneration Technologies, and up to 82 units of affected bone graft material are known to have been implanted in British patients.

Mastromarino and his criminal associates harvested more than 1,400 bodies.

As part of the plea bargain, Mastromarino co-operated with prosecutors in a probe of several companies that bought the stolen body parts and then sold them throughout the US, Canada and Europe.

The transplants included bones, skin, arterial valves, ligaments and tendons.

The body-snatching ring ran for more than four years. The bodies came fromfuneral homes in New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey and Biomedical Tissue Services, a company owned by Mastromarino.

According to the indictment, Mastromarino paid funeral home owners $1,000 for each corpse and forged next-of-kin permission documents to validate his sales.

In January, Mastromarino’s chief assistant, nurse Lee Cruceta, admitted he cut body parts from 244 corpses and helped forge paperwork so the parts could be used in unsuspecting patients. He negotiated pleas to serve concurrent sentences of six-and-a-half to 20 years.

Cases are continuing against two others.

The gruesome trade of illegally harvested body parts was highlighted by the case involving the late BBC broadcaster Alistair Cooke.

The veteran journalist died of cancer in 2004 aged 95.

Following his death, his body was cremated in a seemingly routine ceremony in New York. But unbeknown to his family, Mr Cooke’s legs had been removed from the corpse before it was burnt.

Mr Cooke’s stepdaughter, Holly Rumbold, described the gruesome practice as “corrupt and evil”.