The former director of UCLA's program for bodies donated to research pleaded guilty on Friday for his involvement in a scheme to selling traffic body parts for about $1 million profit, prosecutors said.
58-year-old Henry Reid confessed he had conspired to steal human body parts between 1999 and 2004 and give them to Ernest Nelson, a so-called body broker, who traded them to more than 20 medical, drug and research companies, the Los Angeles County district attorney's office asserted.
Henry Reid, of Anaheim, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit grand theft. Both Reid and Ernest Nelson were indicted by a grand jury in May this year. Reid agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in “body broker’s” trial and, moreover, he will pay back $100,000 to $1 million to the UCLA program, district attorney's officials said.
According to Reid’s lawyer, Melvyn Sacks, the Anaheim man “accepted responsibility” for the error he made with reference to his duties as head of the Willed Body Program at the University of California, Los Angeles, and feels really sorry for having donated body parts on the black market. "He deeply regrets” the situation, Sacks said following the hearing.
Under a plea agreement made with the prosecution, Reid is facing 4 years and 4 months in state prison. He is to be sentenced on Jan. 30.
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