NECC Defendant Fights Prison Term

By Walter F. Roche Jr.

A convicted defendant in the case stemming from a deadly fungal meningitis outbreak is disputing a pre-sentence report that would lead to a prison term in an upcoming sentencing hearing.
Alla Stepanets, one of five convicted late last year after a 10 week trial,says the conclusion that she should serve a prison term violates her constitutional rights and mis-states her role at the New England Compounding Center, the company blamed for the 2012 outbreak which led to the deaths of over 100 patients across the country.
In a six-page filing in U.S. District Court in Boston, Mass., the lawyer for Stepanets, stated that his client "was merely the last pharmacist who handled the (NECC) orders prior to their introduction into interstate commerce."
John Cunha, Stepanets' attorney, said she acted as a checker and not the verifying pharmacist for orders shipped from NECC. That role, he said, was performed by other NECC staffers before his client even handled the drugs.
Stepanets and four other defendants were convicted in December of charges ranging from racketeering to conspiracy and mail fraud, but as Cunha noted, his client was cleared of the more serious charges. He said the jurors acquitted her on charges that she meant to deceive NECC clients.
Calling her role "purely clerical," Cunha said her role at NECC "failed to employ any special skill the defendant possessed as a pharmacist."
He further charged that holding Stepanets to a strict liability standard for a misdemeanor is unconstitutional.
Stepanets was one of three pharmacists who check prescription orders after they left the clean room where they were prepared.
In the filing Cunha said there was no evidence that his client was aware that the patient names on the prescriptions she checked were not legitimate. Evidence presented at her trial showed prescriptions were routinely issued for non existent patients including Donald Duck and Donald Trump.
Stepanets' sentencing is scheduled for May 1 before U.S. District Judge Richard G. Stearns. He previously cleared Stepanets of the pending charges but they were reinstated by an appeals court.
She was one of 14 indicted in 2014 following a two year probe of the fungal meningitis outbreak. The trial of the two remaining defendants is scheduled to begin late this month.
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