A judge ordered separate trials for three funeral home directors and four former employees of a biomedical supply company accused of looting body parts from three dozen corpses.
On Tuesday, Judge Joseph Valentino decided the first trial would start Nov. 3. Prosecutors have a week to decide which defendant will go first.
The seven defendants are all charged with taking skin, bone and other body parts without permission from bodies being prepared for cremation at three funeral homes in Rochester, Hilton and Irondequoit.
Four of the defendants worked at the Rochester branch of Biomedical Tissue Services, a New Jersey company owned by Michael Mastromarino. He made millions of dollars by plundering hundreds of bodies sent to funeral homes and selling their often-diseased parts and tissues to medical companies.
Mastromarino is already serving 18 to 54 years for running the scam in New York. He pleaded guilty last month to hundreds of charges that could send him to prison for life.
Biomedical Tissue Services took bodies from funeral homes in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Among the corpses plundered was that of "Masterpiece Theatre" host Alistair Cooke.
