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Subscribe to RSSThe four primary owners of the pharmacy linked to a deadly U.S. meningitis outbreak that has killed 44 people received at least $16 million in salaries and shareholder distributions in 2012, according to papers filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court.
New England Compounding Center owner Carla Conigliaro, the largest shareholder in the privately held company, received nearly $9 million in 2012, according to court papers filed late on Friday.
NECC also paid about $18,000 on her American Express card for purchases from gas stations, restaurants, the Apple Store and other places.
Barry Cadden, NECC's chief pharmacist, received about $3.2 million in 2012, filings show. His wife, Lisa Cadden, received about $2.8 million. Greg Conigliaro, a recycling entrepreneur who is Lisa Cadden's brother, received about $1.6 million.
The filings also showed that Framingham, Massachusetts-based NECC had made lease payments for a 2012 BMW X5 and 2011 Mercedes Benz GL-550. NECC paid, for example, $1,251 a month for Carla Conigliaro's Mercedes Benz lease payment, court papers show.
Brown Rudnick LLP, which is representing the official committee of unsecured creditors in NECC's bankruptcy, said NECC had paid more than $21 million to the pharmacy's four primary owners and other insiders.
Medical Sales Management, which shares some common ownership with NECC, received more than $4 million from NECC in 2012, court papers show.
A spokesman for NECC did not return a telephone call seeking comment.
NECC filed for bankruptcy protection last month after U.S. authorities shut down its pharmacy operations amid a meningitis outbreak that has killed 44 people and sickened 678 others, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.
NECC shipped thousands of vials of a fungus-tainted steroid to medical facilities throughout the United States, according to authorities.
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Poison America, then reap rewards. Great Country we live in. Who makes the rules?
What rules? Big business is raping the public, and with their deep pockets and our corrupt/ineffective legal system, they get away with it.
Unless real limits on corporate and private campaign donations are put in place, the corporations and super rich will be making the rules.
I'm thinking, no more than $1,000 in total contributions per person, no more than $500 to an individual candidate, and you can only contribute to campaigns that you can vote for (i.e. someone from Connecticut couldn't contribute to the New York senatorial campaign). Corporations aren't allowed to donate at all.
At the very least, it'd cut down on all those annoying political ads.
Free market capitalism at its worst. These are some of the 2% that Republicans want to protect and reward for creating jobs. They have no qualms about producing lethal products and collecting huge compensation for knowingly selling death to the public. Why have no criminal charges been brought against anybody in this company yet? Of course, the answer is that they are big contributors to the Republican party. That's the free market at work.
Do we know why health insurance and medication is so expensive or is it just expensive to those that are not connected to these institutions?
Looks like the rich and powerful suckered the American Public yet again.
Sickening.
They are in the top 1%. Every time someone suggests that people at the top do these things, poison, kill, maim, lie cheat etc. as part of the way they got rich (NECC has been cited many times over the years) some knucklehead decides the person complaining is a socialist, commie or anarchist. These folks are like the Madoffs but working in Pharmacy. You can bet they also arranged corporate structure to avoid all personal liability. They will keep their ill-gotten gains. Their insurance policy will pay to it's limits but it probably will not cover the damage they did. It will not bring back the dead or cure the maimed. Not everyone in the top 1% invented a useful product or solved a major business problem. Some of them are liars and cheats. And it should be OK through the legal process to take all their stuff and money. Ken Lay was a crook, convicted in court for fraud and more as CEO of Enron. But his widow got to keep all his ill-gotten gains because some idiot Fed judge said that the court conviction does not apply when a convict dies while his case is under appeal. What the court should have said was, because he died and in light of his prior conviction, his appeal is vacated and the conviction stands. It's like one court honoring the work of another court. Else, what's the system for ? The system should not be there to merely let the rich keep their gains. There should be a modicum of justice once in awhile. But the people have to stop protecting the rich at all times and demand justice. IF justice requires the rich guys who do wrong to become impoverished, then that's what it requires.
I would bet if you owed the Pharmacy money you would be taken to Court quickly. Bet the Pharmacy will come out smelling like a rose on this mess.
How utterly absurd is this?? Just give them the money on the first day of work, because obviously performance has nothing to do with how much money they make. This kind of entitlement is sick. Only in America, thankfully and sadly.
If you think this only happens in America, you are sadly mistaken.
That is why I go to Mexico better care, WAY less expensive and my doctor there emails me and calls to follow up or see how I am, and when I had to go to the emergency room in Reagan Medical Snellville, GA (internal bleeding) and they refused to treat me because I had been treated outside the country and none of the US doctors here I called would return my call (pre-Christmas) my doctor in Mexico called me back and talked me through the crisis could have bled to death with out help!
If we had true campaign finance reform and the people elected to pass laws regulating this behavior were more than just political prostitutes, we might actually get some effective legislation that might keep these corporate criminals from raping the American consumer. As it is, the most important element in American politics is money and these people are interested in power and wealth and NOT the interests of their constituencies. The idea that corporations are people and that money equals free speech will ultimately destroy this nation. Or just turn us into a third world country of wage slaves.
i hope whoever is in charge of nailing these people take a real close look at the 'expense' charges they put on their company cards. i have an expense acct. and there are very particular rules about what is and is not considered a business expense. make an example of these m-f'ers!
and seriously...someone should poll recycling companies and see if any of them get paid 1.2 mil from any single client. BET NOT!!!
America is not broke, it's being robbed from the top down. I hope someone, somewhere fully investigates these creeps. We are nothing but guinea pigs for the pharmaceutical industry. Your very own doctor is probably in bed with them. I worked in a medical clinic for years and big pharma used to come in with lavish lunches and other perks for the staff while pushing their drugs.
This place has nothing to do with the "pharmaceutical industry". It's a compounding pharmacy, that is, a pharmacy that makes (compounds) drugs which are prescribed by physicians but are of such limited use that the drug companies don't make them. There aren't many compounding pharmacies- and they are necessary. The culprits in this sad farrago are, in addition to the pharmacy itself, the state and/or federal entities that fell down on their jobs of inspecting, correcting, and licencing the filthy place, in spite of knowing about the criminally inept and negligent practices there.
Sorry Nancy B. IT is pharmacy. Clearly they manufactured and sold pharmacuticles. Sure they did not hold a proper license - but that is exactly the problem isn't it. A corporation is allowed to operate a pharm manufacturing business, but as they declare themselves to not be a pharmacy manufacturer, well then, you guess they are not therefore a manufacturer. They were inspected, as the manufacturing interest they declared themselves to be. The gubmint and the inspectors should have said: we know what you called yourselves on your license, but you are wrong and you are operating as a manufacturer and those rules apply. You are therefore out of compliance and must shut down until you are in compliance. But the paycheck for life gubmint employees decided why rock the boat. Let these guys do what they want. And now there are dead people everywhere. And the paycheck for life gubmint employees will not loose a single paycheck. The rich owners of this fraud business will likely keep their ill-gotten gains.
I would wonder if there are going to be criminal complaints
Kill people through your cooperation and get bonuses! And absolutely no criminal charges. Yes! 44 dead...how much are their lives worth?
Face it folks, whether you kill 44 people through incompetence or just rob everyone of their retirement and run the country into a recession with it, these guys are protected and encouraged by the GOP. All the rest of us do the work and take the hits and this privileged few reap the rewards. It's called feudalism and that's how those on the right want the country run. And I completely agree with Scubasteve... the Supreme Court gave the 1% the protection of the constitution to continue raping the rest of us. Every attempt to increase regulation on these bozos runs into the wall of GOP obstruction in congress. All we can do is hope for smarter Americans when we vote in 2014.
They should be stripped of those payments and the money should go to cover the patients' (their victims) medical bills, and the rest given to charity. Then they should go to prison for premeditated murder.
I'm sure, just like the bankers in 2008-2009-2010....they'll say that they're contractually entitled to this pay and there's nothing that can be done. And nothing will be done.
they used this business as their personal piggy banks, with depraved indifference to the work that should have been done. Their greed cost 44 lives. At the least, they should NEVER be allow to have any connection with the medical industry in any capacity. Actually, they should be in jail for 44 counts of manslaughter.
People that run companies like this always know how to pin the blame on others, that is why so rarely do these people go to jail. This is actually part of the process of being able to get this high in the hierarchy; being able to blame others and make it stick. Just wait: thebosses will show proof that it is was some poor schmuch in quality inspection that lied or did not do what they were supposed to do and so these people will go off scott free.
Ok Repubs, I want to see people stepping up and taking responsibility for what they did wrong...isn't personal responsibility what Repubs keep nattering about, yet don't do when it comes to things like this? I won't hold my breath, as "personal responsibility" is just another hollow repub myth.
The worst part is that these people will just re-incorporate under a different name next week and start doing the same things again. And there are absolutely no laws that would prevent them or prevent them from backing others 'silently' as investors. Business can get away with murder, literally, and pay absolutely no price for doing so.
So much for a corporation being an individual that has free speech. When an individual dies, they don't usually come back to life with a different name and start up right where they died, do they?
Corporations have all of the benefits but none of the responsibility for their actions. That is immoral and just plain wrong.
Where, oh, where, do you bozos come off linking common greed with all of this political BS? It's all about GREED!!!!!!!
These bastards should face time in prison...not country club jail, ad seg at Levenworth.
Raking in millions and they're declaring bankruptcy......absolutely outrageous. Hopefully the bankruptcy court won't approve it.....that's the best we can hope for. And if they do go into Chapter 13, they'll open up a new business with a different name, etc......
Greedy, greedy, greedy and absolutely NO CONSCIENCE.
Negligent homicide, no trial necessary. The owners of the company, the state and federal 'inspectors' and the employees who did nothing to stop what amounts to MURDER. If I knowingly infect people with a deadly injection I'm getting the electric chair, so what about these asshats?!