By Jon King / jking@whmi.com


Final arguments have again been rescheduled 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.
Following multiple days of testimony held over a two month period, final arguments in the case had originally been scheduled for late March, but were re-set for April 8th and then again for May 21st due to the COVID-19 crisis. But according to an order signed by 53rd District Court Judge Shauna Murphy, the final arguments will be held via two-way video with a final decision scheduled to be issued by June 24th whether or not to send the case to trial in circuit court. Previous testimony in the case included former NECC pharmacy technicians who said they observed routine violations in the pharmacy’s clean room, including falsified cleaning logs, insects inside the clean room, rusty equipment and drugs that had not been tested before being shipped out anyway. Cadden and Chin remain in custody at the Livingston County Jail, where they were transferred late last year from federal facilities in Pennsylvania in which they were serving time from a previous conviction in the case.