Jersey!!!! Why am I not surprized?

**fultonCoShooter** · January 16th, 2008, 03:09 AM

http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/jersey...230.xml&coll=1

Leader to plead guilty in body-parts scheme

The accused mastermind of a multimillion-dollar plot to plunder corpses and sell body parts has agreed to plead guilty to charges that will net him a lengthy prison sentence, his lawyer and authorities said.

Michael Mastromarino, 44, of Fort Lee, is facing 18-to-54 years in prison, according to his attorney, Mario Gallucci. Mastromarino has been held in a Rikers Island jail since last month, the attorney said.

Word of the plea, which Mastromarino is expected to enter in a Brooklyn courthouse as early as next week, marks a turning point in a grisly case that became public two years ago.

Prosecutors alleged Mastromarino and his partners stole body parts from more than 1,000 cadavers in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, selling them for millions of dollars to hospitals and tissue banks that used them for dental implants, hip replacements and other procedures. The ring sometimes forged documents to alter ages of very elderly "donors" or to conceal the fact they died of cancer or other diseases.

Mastromarino "was facing a daunting battle, and he sees this as his best opportunity to accept responsibility and move on," Gallucci said.

He added that while his client had agreed to plead guilty to several counts of an 122-count indictment filed in Brooklyn Supreme Court, exact terms of the plea remain under negotiation. Authorities privately confirmed the plea but said Mastromarino will plead guilty to all counts in the indictment.

His next court hearing is Tuesday.

"He's going to go to jail for a significant part of his life," Gallucci said. "But if he went to court and he lost he would probably never see the light of day again."

As part of the agreement, Mastromarino must cooperate with the investigation into his former Fort Lee company, Biomedical Tissue Services, and its involvement with two tissue processing companies that purchased the body parts, his lawyer said.

In February 2006, Mastromarino and three New York men were indicted in Brooklyn for their role in the lucrative ring.

Brooklyn authorities said Biomedical employees falsified records to make it appear that they received permission from relatives to remove the parts in a practice known as harvesting.

The victims included Alistair Cooke, the British-born broadcaster who died of cancer at the age of 95, Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes has said. The company made millions from 2002-2005, authorities said.

Also charged in Brooklyn were Joseph Nicelli, of Staten Island, an embalmer and former director of a Brooklyn funeral home, and Biomedical cutters Lee Cruceta, a nurse from Monroe, N.Y., and Christopher Aldorasi of New York City.

Officials would not confirm news reports that Cruceta is cooperating with authorities in the case. His attorney did not return a phone call for comment yesterday.

Hundreds of lawsuits have been filed in state and federal courts by patients who were implanted with processed bits of bones from cadavers. Bones procured by Biomedical Tissue ended up inside 10,000 patients worldwide, according to some estimates.

Mastromarino and Cruceta face similar charges in Philadelphia where officials allege they illegally carved up 244 corpses with the help of local funeral home directors. Some Biomedical employees were also charged in Rochester, NY.

No one has been charged in New Jersey where law enforcement sources said Biomedical employees carved up bodies in several North Jersey funeral homes.