ハーバード大医学部の遺体保管責任者、部位を密売

【ニューヨークＡＦＰ＝時事】米検察は１４日、ハーバード大学医学部に献体された遺体の部位を密売したとして、遺体保管責任者の男ら６人が起訴されたと発表した。（写真は資料写真）
　ペンシルベニア州ミドル地区連邦検事事務所によると、起訴されたのはセドリック・ロッジ被告（５５）のほか、妻デニス被告（６３）ら共犯者５人。全国的な遺体密売網に関与したとされる。
　ロッジ被告は２０１８～２２年、提供された遺体が火葬される前に内臓などの部位を盗んだ疑いが持たれている。
　同被告は盗んだ部位を、マサチューセッツ州ボストンの大学施設からニューハンプシャー州ゴフスタウンの自宅に持ち帰り、妻と共にカトリーナ・マクリーン（４４）、ジョシュア・テーラー（４６）両被告に売却した。
　両被告を大学の遺体保管所に招き、買い取りたいものを検討させたこともあるという。両被告は、営利目的で部位を転売していた。
　主要紙ボストン・グローブによると、訴状には、マクリーン被告が「なめし革」にしてもらうため、人の皮膚をテイラー被告に送付したとの記述もある。
　ジェラード・カラム連邦検事は「理解を超えた犯罪だ」と形容。「遺体の多くは医学生の教育や科学・医療の進歩のために献体されたことを考えると、極めて悪質」だと糾弾した。
　ハーバード大は５月６日付でロッジ被告を解雇したとしている。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2023/06/15-16:44）

The morgue manager at America's prestigious Harvard Medical School allegedly took dead body parts from his workplace without permission and then sold them, US prosecutors said Wednesday.
Cedric Lodge, 55, has been charged with trafficking in stolen human remains, the US attorney for the Middle District of Pennsylvania said in a statement.
Some crimes defy understanding, said the attorney, Gerard Karam.
It is particularly egregious that so many of the victims here volunteered to allow their remains to be used to educate medical professionals and advance the interests of science and healing, he added.
Lodge has been charged alongside his wife, 63-year-old Denise Lodge, and five other alleged co-conspirators with involvement in a nationwide network of bought and sold human remains.
Prosecutors say that from 2018 to 2022 Cedric Lodge stole organs and other parts of cadavers donated for medical research and education before their scheduled cremations.
He is accused of taking the remains from the Harvard site in Boston to his home in Goffstown, New Hampshire, where he and his wife sold the remains to two of the other accused -- Katrina Maclean and Joshua Taylor.
At times, Lodge allowed Maclean and Taylor to enter the morgue... and examine cadavers to choose what to purchase, the attorney's office said.
Prosecutors say Maclean, 44, of Salem, Massachusetts, and Taylor, 46, of West Lawn, Pennsylvania then resold the remains for profit.
The indictment alleges that Maclean shipped human skin to Taylor to have him tan the skin to create leather, the Boston Globe reported.
Lodge managed the morgue for Harvard's anatomical gifts program. He was fired from his post on May 6, the school said in a statement.
We are appalled to learn that something so disturbing could happen on our campus, George Daley, the dean of Harvard University's medicine faculty, and Edward Hundert, dean of medical education, said in a joint statement.
Another co-accused allegedly stole remains from a morgue in Arkansas where she worked, including the corpses of two stillborn babies who were due to be cremated and returned to their families.
Two other people charged allegedly bought and sold remains from each other, exchanging more than $100,000 in online payments.