Pharmacist pleads no contest to involuntary manslaughter in Michigan deaths from meningitis outbreak

A Massachusetts pharmacist pleaded no contest Thursday to involuntary manslaughter in the deaths of 11 people in Michigan, all victims of tainted steroids that caused a national meningitis outbreak in 2012.

Glenn Chin, 56, will get a 7 1/2-year prison sentence in October. He will benefit by receiving credit for his current, longer sentence for separate federal crimes.

“Mr. Chin should not face any further incarceration after his current federal sentence, and an unnecessarily burdensome and lengthy trial has been avoided for the court and the people of the state of Michigan,” defense attorney Bill Livingston said.

Michigan has been the only state to prosecute Chin and his boss, Barry Cadden, for deaths related to the scandal. Cadden, too, pleaded no contest to involuntary manslaughter earlier this year. Second-degree murder charges for both men were dropped.

New England Compounding Center in Framingham, Massachusetts, shipped steroids for pain relief to clinics across the country. Investigators said the lab was rife with mold, insects and cracks. Chin supervised production.

More than 700 people in 20 states were sickened with fungal meningitis or other debilitating illnesses, and dozens died, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Chin is currently serving a 10 1/2-year federal sentence for racketeering, fraud and other crimes connected to the outbreak, following a 2017 trial in Boston.

Cadden, 57, pleaded no contest to involuntary manslaughter in Michigan earlier this year and was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Cadden’s state sentence is running at the same time as his 14 1/2-year federal sentence, and he's getting credit for time in custody since 2018.

State prosecutors have said the plea deals were endorsed by most families that lost loved ones. But Michael Kruzich of Grand Rapids, Michigan, said he disagreed.

He said he wanted to see Chin and Cadden face trials and get sentences that would have kept them in custody much longer.

"It’s kind of a whimper at the end of this,” said Kruzich, whose 78-year-old mother, Donna Kruzich, died in October 2012, shortly after a routine injection for back pain.

He said the attorney general’s office told him that the deals were a “win-win” because much time had passed and key witnesses from the federal case were no longer around.

___

Follow Ed White at https://twitter.com/edwritez