Testimony concluded Friday in the pre-trial hearing for two men charged with the deaths of 11 Livingston County residents.

Barry Cadden and Glenn Chin were charged with Second Degree Murder last year by the Michigan Attorney General’s Office for their roles in running the New England Compounding Center. Cadden was a part-owner and Chin was a supervising pharmacist at the facility in which authorities say lax conditions were allowed to infect steroids produced there that led to the 2012 outbreak that killed more than 100 people nationwide and sickened nearly a thousand others.

On Friday, two former NECC pharmacy technicians testified about routine violations they observed in the pharmacy’s clean room. Joseph Connelly said that in his time working at the facility he witnessed falsified cleaning logs, insects inside the clean room, rusty equipment and drugs that had not been tested being shipped out anyway. He also said when he tried to get help to assist in correcting the issues, Chin showed little interest. Connelly also said that everything at the pharmacy was brought to a halt in the Fall of 2012 when everyone was told to start cleaning and drugs were thrown out. Also testifying was Nicholas Booth, who said that as NECC began to receive more orders, less time was spent on cleaning including black liquid that would regularly drip from one of the fan hoods and then would just be cleaned up at the end of the day.

Final arguments are set for March 27th, after which 53rd District Court Judge Shauna Murphy will decide April 16th whether or not to send the case to trial in circuit court. (JK)