Lost in the furor over "The Interview" getting ixnayed is a major dose of good news. You may remember that two years ago, a severe outbreak of fungal meningitis was linked to injectable steroids supplied by the New England Compounding Center, a compounding pharmacy near Boston. Following a state investigation that revealed staggering lapses in safety and cleanliness, NECC was driven out of business. Yesterday, federal prosecutors in Boston indicted 14 former NECC executives and employees on a laundry list of felonies. It alleges that from 2006 to 2012, NECC knowingly sent out mislabeled, untested, and contaminated injections--some of them without a matching prescription as required by law. It also alleges that NECC knowingly made drugs in contaminated and unsanitary conditions. Read the indictment here.
That was enough to slap six employees, including the pharmacy's part-owner and chief pharmacist, Barry Cadden, with a racketeering charge. The most serious allegation charges the pharmacy's part-owner, Barry Cadden, with causing 25 of the 64 deaths resulting from the outbreak. Prosecutors think this amounted to second-degree murder--and if they can convince a jury of this, Cadden could get life in prison.
While I wrote this up at Liberal America, I found myself thinking about another executive whose malfeasance resulted in people dying--Don Blankenship. For those who missed it, Blankenship is facing a host of criminal charges for turning Upper Big Branch into a death trap--and thus creating the conditions that caused it to explode four years ago. He could get up to 31 years in prison, but the only reason he's facing serious jail time is that he told shareholders that he did not tolerate mine safety violations--a statement that anyone who has followed this story knows is a transparent lie. He filed this statement with the SEC as well. The charges actually related to the conditions in the mine only carry six years--which isn't even a phrase.
Blankenship is charged with defrauding the Mine Safety and Health Administration by concealing rampant mine safety violations after getting advance notice that inspectors were on the way. Since fraud is an indictable offense under RICO, why couldn't each specific instance of defrauding the MSHA over three years be a predicate act. Had that happened, if prosecutors could prove two of them--ANY two of them--Blankenship would be staring down the barrel of an additional 20 years in prison, which when coupled with the other charges would all but assure he would die behind bars. The significance? If Massey had been a private company, a RICO indictment for Blankenship would still amount to a life sentence at his age.
Blankenship's actions are every bit as egregious as Cadden's. So why didn't Booth Godwin, the U. S. Attorney in West Virginia, follow the lead of his counterpart in Massachusetts, Carmen Ortiz? Had he done so, it would have been a deterrent to all scofflaw mine owners, not just those who run public companies.