Unlicensed Pharmacy Tech Guilty Of Working At Compounding Center

FRAMINGHAM, MA—An employee of New England Compounding Center (NECC) pleaded guilty Friday in federal court in Boston in connection with working as an unlicensed pharmacy technician at the compounding pharmacy in Framingham.

Scott M. Connolly, 46, of East Greenwich, RI, pleaded guilty to nine counts of mail fraud and will be sentenced on Dec. 19.

In December 2014, Connolly was indicted along with 13 others in connection with the 2012 nationwide fungal meningitis outbreak originating from NECC. Connolly is cooperating with the government and is expected to testify during the October 2018 trial of the remaining NECC defendants, said the announcement.

From September 2007 to January 2009, Connolly was a licensed pharmacy technician. He voluntarily surrendered his license after disciplinary action had been taken against him. Massachusetts law states that anyone filling a drug order must be a licensed technician.

Connolly was hired at NECC and worked as a pharmacy technician from 2010 through October, assigned to Clean Room 2 making cardioplegia solutions that are used to stop patients’ hearts during heart surgeries. For more than two years, Connolly produced thousands of cardioplegia solutions that were sent to customers throughout the country. Connolly’s unlicensed status was known to his supervising pharmacists, Barry Cadden, Glenn Chin and Gene Svirskiy, continued the announcement.

To mask his presence from regulators, Connolly used Cadden’s username and password to log into the computerized pump so that his name would not appear on any paperwork generated when he filled the cardioplegia orders. He also did not perform any of the required validation tests other pharmacy technicians were required to do. In his employment file, he falsely was listed as a warehouse employee.

The NECC criminal case arose from the nationwide outbreak of fungal meningitis that was traced back to contaminated vials of preservative-free methylprednisolone acetate (MPA) manufactured by NECC. The outbreak was the largest public health crisis caused by a pharmaceutical product.

In March 2017, Cadden was convicted by a federal jury of racketeering, racketeering conspiracy, mail fraud and introduction of misbranded drugs into interstate commerce with the intent to defraud and mislead. He was sentenced in June 2017 to 108 months in prison and three years of supervised release. In October 2017, Chin was convicted of the same charges and sentenced in January 2018 to eight years in prison and two years of supervised release.

Connolly could get up to 20 years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of $250,000.

The charge of mail fraud provides for a sentence of no greater than 20 years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of $250,000.

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