Brooklyn DA hands down indictments in illegal tissue harvesting case

Four men accused of illegally harvesting tissue from dead bodies were indicted in Brooklyn Thursday.The indictment charges Dr. Michael Mastromarino, the owner of Biomedical Tissue Services, of paying

News 12 Staff

Feb 23, 2006, 11:47 PM

Updated 6,771 days ago

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Four men accused of illegally harvesting tissue from dead bodies were indicted in Brooklyn Thursday.The indictment charges Dr. Michael Mastromarino, the owner of Biomedical Tissue Services, of paying off Brooklyn funeral homes to take bones and tissue from the dead. Officials from the district attorney?s office say they do not believe Brooklyn funeral directors were involved in the harvesting. They say it was an inside operation between the four men named in the indictment. All four were charged with enterprise corruption, body stealing and opening graves, unlawful dissection, forgery and other counts. Several families have already filed civil lawsuits against Mastromarino, who has denied any role in the illegal ring.