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Body Snatchers Surrender
By
Jen Chung
Published Feb 23, 2006
Modified Mar 7, 2008
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By
Jen Chung
Published Feb 23, 2006
Modified Mar 7, 2008
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He's not quite The Marathon Man, but dentist Michael Mastromarino is turning into a modern day horror figure. Last night, he and two other men turned themselves in to the Brooklyn DA over charges that they had been illegally harvesting various tissues and bones from corpses. The scandal emerged when a Brooklyn funeral home was being sold, the operators claimed that an embalmer removed bones and replaced them with pipe - and given the embalmer's connections with Mastromarino who owned a company that sold human tissue, Mastomarino was targetted. The DA's office believe that he would get a tip from the embalmer and then head to the funeral home to harvest tissues, bones and organs. Huh, Gothamist can sort of understand that you'd be able to reuse a human bone, but an organ from an already dead body at the funeral home? Mastromarino is suspected of forging consent forms as well as changing death certificates to give the bodies a better bill of health.
And among the bodies handled by the crooked undertakers: Alistair Cooke.
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Jen Chung
Jen Chung is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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