NECC Supervising Pharmacist Arrested At Logan Airport

BOSTON (CBS) – The supervising pharmacist at the now-closed New England Compounding Center was arrested at Logan Airport Thursday as he was about to get on a flight overseas, investigators said.

Glenn Adam Chin, 46, of Canton, was attempting to board a plane to Hong Kong with his family when he was arrested by federal agents.

Chin appeared in federal court in South Boston Thursday afternoon to face a charge of mail fraud.

His attorney Paul Shaw said his client had a round trip ticket for a family wedding in Hong Kong.  He was scheduled to fly out with his wife, six-year-old daughter, two-year-old son, and 86-year-old mother.

Chin's brother called the arrest "ridiculous," while the attorney said it was a "publicity stunt" by federal agents.

He is the first person to face criminal charges in the probe.

Additional charges against Chin and others are expected to follow.   A federal grand jury in Boston is continuing to look into the case.

In court, the prosecutor said Chin knew he was the target of a criminal probe and did not notify them of this trip. They felt it was too risky to let him leave country, based on the magnitude of the case.

Chin's lawyer says his client was never called to testify before the grand jury and never thought he was the target of any investigation.

The judge put Chin on home confinement for now until his family returns from the 12-day trip to Hong Kong.

NECC, which was based in Framingham, is being investigated as the manufacturer of steroid shots contaminated with black mold that were distributed to medical facilities in at least 23 states exposing thousands of patients to fungal meningitis in the fall of 2012.

750 people became ill and 64 of them died.

The U.S. Attorney's Office said Chin was a supervising pharmacist at NECC who was involved in compounding the contaminated chemicals that caused the outbreak.

"The criminal complaint charges Chin with participating in a scheme to fraudulently cause one lot of MPA to be labeled as injectable, meaning that it was sterile and fit for human use, and shipped to one of NECC's customers, Michigan Pain Specialists," The U.S. Attorney's Office said in a statement Thursday.

Read: The Affidavit (.pdf)

"As alleged in the affidavit, after receiving the MPA from NECC, doctors at Michigan Pain Specialists injected the drug into their patients believing it to be injectable as labeled. As a result, 217 of those patients contracted fungal meningitis, of which 15 died."

NECC closed in October 2012 and Chin's attorney says his client has not worked as pharmacist since then.  He was born in Cambridge, grew up in Allston, went to Boston Technical High School and Northeastern.

If Chin is convicted on the one count of mail fraud he faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.

Late last year, a preliminary settlement was reached to set up a victim compensation fund worth more than $100 million.

It still needs approval from a bankruptcy judge.

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