Man charged in $350K human skin heist from Philadelphia hospital

Associated Press<br /><img border="0" src="http://www.rep-am.com/content/articles/2014/05/31/news/national/807610.jpg" /><br />PHILADELPHIA — A medical company sales representative was charged with stealing more than $350,000 worth of human skin over a period of several years.<br /><br />Gary Dudek, 54, of Wallingford, was arrested Monday and charged with theft, receiving stolen property and tampering with records.<br /><br />Authorities say he worked until September as a sales representative for a regenerative medicine firm, managing accounts for the bioscience department of Mercy Philadelphia Hospital. In that role, Dudek was allowed to order the skin grafts for the hospital whenever he wanted.<br /><br />Authorities said the hospital only needed a few grafts at a time. Dudek, however, ordered more than 200 without authorization from November 2011 through July that the hospital never received, investigators said.<br /><br />Philadelphia police said they do not know the motive or what happened to the grafts, which were valued at $1,700 each.<br /><br />Dudek was released Tuesday after posting 10 percent of $10,000 bail. His attorney, Eugene Tinari, told WCAU-TV in a statement that the hospital has yet to prove his client did anything wrong, and the case should be handled as a civil matter.<br /><br />"To take this into the criminal arena against a man who has been nothing but hard-working and law-abiding his entire life is a bit draconian, in my view," he said.<br /><br />Dudek worked for Canton, Mass.-based Organogenesis. As a sales rep, he would have had no use for human skin grafts, company spokeswoman Angelyn Lowe told the Philadelphia Daily News.

Philadelphia VIDEO: Is This the Knockout Game in Philadelphia? Man charged in $350K human skin heist from Philadelphia hospital

Associated PressPHILADELPHIA — A medical company sales representative was charged with stealing more than $350,000 worth of human skin over a period of several years.Gary Dudek, 54, of Wallingford, was arrested Monday and charged with theft, recei…

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