Brothers prison-bound for body part sales

PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 23 (UPI) -- Two brothers convicted of selling body parts from their funeral homes will each spend at least eight years in prison, a Philadelphia judge has ruled.

Philadelphia Common Pleas Judge Glenn B. Bronson sentenced Louis and Gerald Garzone each to 8- to 20 years in prison for selling cadavers and body parts to a medical company to be used in surgeries, the Philadelphia Inquirer said Thursday.

Louis, 66, and Gerald, 48, both previously pleaded guilty to selling a total of 244 cadavers to Biomedical Tissue Services Inc. of Fort Lee, N.J.

The company owned by oral surgeon Michael Mastromarino purchased the bodies between February 2004 and October 2005 to plunder the corpses for body parts, prosecutors say.

The cadavers had all been held at the brothers' funeral homes for cremation, but the cremation process would not occur until the bodies had been pilfered for parts.

The Inquirer said Mastromarino was sentenced Wednesday to 25 to 58 years in prison in relation to the funerary sales.