US illegal organ-trafficker gets 54 years

0 Comments | AFP, June, 2008

NEW YORK (AFP) — The mastermind of a network caught trafficking organs illegally harvested from some 1,000 bodies including that of veteran BBC journalist Alistair Cooke was sentenced to 54 years in jail Friday.

Former dentist Michael Mastromarino, 44, was sentenced after pleading guilty earlier this year to a conspiracy to steal human tissue.

"In accordance with a March 18 guilty plea, Mastromarino was sentenced today to 18 to 54 years in prison," said District Attorney Charles Hynes.

Mastromarino was "charged with orchestrating a large-scale, criminal enterprise, in which tissues were harvested from people who never consented before they died, to be donors," Hynes said.

"Those tissues were then sold to medical companies for use in surgical...

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