Harvard Pays $53M Over Stolen Body Parts
Harvard Pays $53M Over Stolen Body Parts
The News
Harvard Medical School has agreed to pay $53 million to settle class action lawsuits brought by relatives of body donors whose remains were stolen and sold on the black market by the school's former morgue manager.
Harvard Medical School deans George Q. Daley and Bernard S. Chang announced the settlement in a letter to the school community on Tuesday, calling the actions of former morgue manager Cedric Lodge "despicable, abhorrent, and a flagrant betrayal of our values as a medical community."
Pending court approval, two class action settlement funds totaling $53 million will be established. The New York Post reported that a state court judge in Boston gave the settlement preliminary approval Tuesday.
Timeline
As far back as 2018, prosecutors said, Lodge was stealing body parts from cadavers donated to Harvard for research and education, taking them to his home in New Hampshire and selling them with his wife to buyers in Pennsylvania and elsewhere. Stolen parts included heads, faces, brains, skin and hands.
Lodge, who had worked at the Harvard morgue for nearly 30 years, was arrested and charged with stealing and selling human remains. Harvard appointed a panel of outside experts to review its Anatomical Gift Program.
Lodge pleaded guilty. He was sentenced to eight years in prison for stealing and selling body parts "as if they were baubles." His wife, Denise Lodge, was sentenced to just over a year for assisting him. Six other people who bought remains from him also pleaded guilty and have been sentenced, according to Harvard.
The deans' letter goes out and a Boston judge preliminarily approves the $53 million deal.
A Harvard Medical School spokesman referred questions to the letter and said the school had no additional information to share.
Reactions
In their letter, Daley and Chang said Lodge's actions "do not reflect the reverence we hold for the altruistic individuals who selflessly donate their bodies" to the school's Anatomical Gift Program. "We reaffirm our deep sorrow and empathy for the families of donors who may have been impacted," they wrote.
Harvard has said Lodge acted without the school's knowledge or permission, citing the federal indictment.
Prosecutors described the trade in blunt terms. In one instance, Lodge provided skin to a buyer so it could be tanned into leather and bound into a book — a "deeply horrifying reality," Assistant U.S. Attorney Alisan Martin said in a court filing. "In another, Cedric and Denise Lodge sold a man's face — perhaps to be kept on a shelf, perhaps to be used for something even more disturbing," Martin said.
What's Next
The settlement still needs final court approval. It covers relatives or designees of people who donated their remains to Harvard Medical School between Jan. 1, 2018, and March 31, 2023.
Harvard also agreed to give families a statement condemning Lodge's actions and summarizing improvements to the Anatomical Gift Program, and to establish an annual financial aid scholarship for medical students beginning in the 2027-28 academic year to honor anatomical donors. The school says it has enacted the recommendations of the outside expert panel appointed in 2023.
More
The lawsuits were brought by 47 relatives of people whose remains were potentially mishandled and sold. Harvard has said it cannot determine precisely which donors' remains Lodge stole; after he was charged, the school compared information from federal investigators with records of when remains were sent for cremation and when Lodge was on campus to identify donors who may have been affected.
Normally, after Harvard finishes using a donated body for research or teaching, the body is returned to the family or cremated. Lodge acknowledged removing body parts before cremation.
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