Wecht case going to jurors today
The celebrity pathologist acted as if he owned the Allegheny coroner's office, prosecutors said.
PITTSBURGH - Federal prosecutors told jurors yesterday that their case against celebrity pathologist Cyril Wecht showed that Wecht used the Allegheny County Coroner's Office, and some cadavers processed there, as though he owned them.
"This is the real issue: Where did all the money go? Where did all the benefit flow?" Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Stallings asked the jury in his closing rebuttal argument.
The jury today was to begin deliberating the charges, mostly mail and wire fraud.
Wecht, 76, has made millions for his private investigations into deaths, including celebrated cases such as JonBenet Ramsey, Anna Nicole Smith's son Daniel, and Laci Peterson.
Defense attorney Jerry McDevitt argued that prosecutors were "making a federal case" out of little more than "legal buckshot" and "hoping that one pellet will kill the bird."
Assistant U.S. Attorney James Wilson told jurors things were so topsy-turvy under Wecht that his private secretary had reserved parking and an access card for the county office, where she ordered government employees on private errands for Wecht.
"How frequently have you been at work and somebody walks in off the street and tells you what to do?" Wilson asked the jury.
But McDevitt said Wecht's transgressions, if any, were nitpicking infractions that didn't seem to upset anybody but federal prosecutors in Pittsburgh.
McDevitt noted that 24 of the 41 counts involve faxes that cost the county a total of $3.96 to send.
But the prosecutors argued that Wecht benefited by ripping off the county and his clients.
His county secretary, Eileen Young, was paid as much as $69,000 a year by the county - and up to $27,000 a year extra by Wecht. Young's workdays, however, were consumed with duties as "office manager" for Wecht's private practice, Wilson said.
Wecht is also accused of having deputies circumvent rules that prevent unclaimed cadavers from being donated to science for at least 30 days. Wecht did that so the bodies could be dissected at an autopsy program he ran at Carlow University, the prosecutors said. In exchange, the school gave him free lab and office space, prosecutors said.
McDevitt said Wecht was dedicated to teaching his craft and with "getting justice" for people by investigating deaths and perfecting the art of forensic science.