Body-parts dealer to plead guilty soon

Michael Mastromarino, alleged mastermind of a multimillion-dollar scam to harvest diseased body parts of 244 Philadelphians without consent and sell them to processors for transplants, will plead guilty here soon.

Today, his attorney, A. Charles Peruto Jr. said he'll inform Common Pleas Judge David Bronson that Mastromarino, 45, of Fort Lee, N.J., intends to enter an open guilty plea to the 1,725-count indictment here after he is sentenced on May 21 in Brooklyn.

Mastromarino's New York lawyer, Mario Galucci, negotiated a plea agreement for an 18-to-54-year prison sentence in connection with a 122-count indictment in Brooklyn. Mastromarino, an ex-dentist, pleaded guilty on March 18.

After 12 years in state prison in New York, Mastromarino becomes eligible for work release, Peruto said. After 15 years, including prison time and work release, Mastromarino would become eligible for parole.

Peruto wanted a concurrent sentence in Pennsylvania so his client would not serve more time here, but the District Attorney's Office would not agree.

Assistant District Attorney Bruce Sagel said: "I'm going to ask for [a] 20-to-40 year consecutive sentence to anything he serves in New York."

Sagel said that an interstate agreement, which would bring Mastromarino to Philadelphia to enter a plea, could not be executed until after he is sentenced in Brooklyn. That process takes about five weeks, which means Mastromarino would plead guilty at the earliest in late June.

Galucci said yesterday he was trying to advance the sentencing date in Brooklyn, so Mastromarino, charged with three co-defendants there, could begin his New York jail time, and become eligible to plead guilty here earlier.

Mastromarino, the owner of now-defunct Biomedical Tissue Services, is charged with sending cutters to Philadelphia to remove tissue from cadavers without consent at three local funeral homes.

In Brooklyn, Mastromarino admitted that he forged death certificates and donor consent forms and substituted blood samples for 1,017 bodies to sell the tissue to five processors, who then sold it to hospitals around the country for transplants.

Three Philadelphia funeral home operators, brothers Louis and Gerald Garzone and James A. McCarthy, Jr., are awaiting trial here. Mastromarino's top cutter, Lee Cruceta, had pleaded guilty and agreed to testify in trials in both states. *