5 charged with trading body parts

PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 4 (UPI) -- Three Philadelphia funeral directors have been arrested on charges of conspiring to sell body parts, District Attorney Lynn Abraham said Thursday.

The owners of a biomedical company in New York have also been charged, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

The defendants include Gerald Garzone of North Wales, his brother, Louis of Philadelphia, who own the Garzone Funeral Home, and James McCafferty, also of Philadelphia, owner of Liberty Crematorium. They allegedly sold tissue, bone and skin from at least 244 bodies to biomedical companies that resold them to hospitals for use in transplants.

"They were taking tissues and everything else,” Abraham said. “They couldn't and wouldn't permit the dead to go to their graves with a shred of dignity. They were motivated by greed." said Abraham.

She said that the men mistreated the bodies entrusted to them in other ways, sometimes stacking them outside.

The Garzones and McCafferty have been arrested, Abraham said. Michael Mastromarino and Lee Cruceta, co-operators of Bio Medical Tissue Services in New York, were expected to surrender to Philadelphia authorities.