July 25, 2013
Michael Mastromarino, a former dental surgeon who was charged with running an illegal enterprise that took body parts from corpses to sell them for profit, died at the age of 49 from liver cancer. He was serving his prison term at the time.
After Mastromarino lost his dental license in 2002 due to his drug addiction, he got his license to supply tissue banks and manufacturers of biological surgical instruments in New York. Harvesting organs is legal in the state, provided the donor didn’t carry communicable diseases, the survivors approve, and the person is not too old.
Amarillo dentist gets prison for health care fraud
Because more people need tissue and organs than are available, the profit is huge. That’s why Mastromarino illegally took body parts from corpses in funeral homes, some of whom had cancer, HIV, and other diseases.
Of course, he had to forge the paperwork to make it look like they were healthy and there was approval.
The police started investigating Mastromarino in 2005. News reportsfrom the time said that there was a secret room at the Daniel George & Son Funeral Home in Brooklyn equipped with surgical equipment. It was also reported that, after leg bones had been removed from corpses, PVC pipe was used to replace the bone so the bodies would look intact at viewings.
Mastromarino pleaded guilty in 2008 to numerous charges, including enterprise corruption, reckless endangerment, and body stealing, and was sentenced to 15 to 30 years in prison.
Mastromarino was the co-author of the book Smile: How Dental Implants Can Transform Your Life.
