i never understood what this smoking gun was until much later in the case, but eventually, the smoking gun was dna information. initially, we were puzzled on how the tainted tissue could get past the health checks. the processors did keep some of the tissue that was sent to them. so at that point, we basically sought out the assistance of our medical examiner s office in new york city, and they were wonderful in helping us conduct all the dna testing. in order to send tissue a processor, the processor needs to do an evaluation on the tissue itself. so the first thing that you send to the processor is a sample of blood. the processor then processes the sample of blood, determines whether or not the person has a disease, such as syphilis, hepatitis, aids, what have you, and then they call up michael and they say, the blood is good.
and i was reading it, and it was just i couldn t even comprehend what i was reading. michael mastromarino. chris and lee and joseph were set to turn themselves in, the end of february of 2006. and they did. sure enough, they came in, they were arraigned in supreme court in brooklyn. they came in, there was cameras everywhere. there was family members who were irate. it was a very tense day, but it was also a good day from the point of view of saying we ve indicted them, now they re going to face charges. i turned myself in. i didn t get arrested, i turned myself in with my attorney 10:00 at night and walked into the d.a. s office in brooklyn and i stayed there overnight. and then, you know, they had the parade of me walking into court
michael mastromarino had myself and every lawyer in my office completely convinced that everything he was doing was completely legal. now mind you, i don t always take what my clients tell me to be truthful. i went and did my own research and what we learned was that yes, what michael was doing was legal. i truly believed the brooklyn district attorney s office had no idea what was going on and we could march in there and explain to them that they have good intentions of protecting society, but they re wrong, that this is something that will better society. at one point, michael and his lawyer said that they were going to come in and speak with me, which as an investigative attorney, many people do. you want to hear what their
gets the best of him, especially in this case, where he got so driven, that he believed he was smarter than everybody else. and that there were a lot of regulations and rules that were put into place that michael believed were unnecessary. did i take the best medical social history? no. was some of that paperwork forged? yes. now, did an hiv case come along? i don t know. but, i can tell you that in the sterilization process, the processing techniques that these companies use, it irradiates everything anyway. hepatitis, hiv, and now this thing with cancer. well, the bone has cancer. the patient died of cancer, so
documents. like i said, i made a lot of bad choices and just trusted the wrong person, and if i could go back and listen to my instincts again, like i said, i know i wouldn t be here. i regret the day i met michael, and i regret doing everything that i ve done to hurt other people. and the pain that i ve caused my family. mastromarino changed his plea to guilty when i guess he realized there was nowhere for him to run. he realized we had done our homework and we had him. so i think that s what pushed him. but he took us right up to the very end, literally pretty much on the eve of trial is when he decided to plea.