The New York Times-20080128-Pathologist Accused of Profiting From Office

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Pathologist Accused of Profiting From Office

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By his own count, Dr. Cyril H. Wecht, one of the nation's foremost forensic pathologists, has testified in more than 1,000 civil and criminal trials in his 46-year career, and opined on thousands more on television, on radio and in print.

But now, for the second time in his life, Dr. Wecht is the accused.

In a case Congressional Democrats say is a politically motivated prosecution by a Republican administration, Dr. Wecht, a Democrat, is in federal court here facing 41 criminal counts. Opening statements are scheduled to begin Monday.

Those counts include mail fraud, wire fraud and theft of honest services. The most serious charges could send him to prison for up to 20 years per count.

The upshot of the government's case is that Dr. Wecht, who was the Allegheny County medical examiner until he resigned after his indictment in January 2006, used his office to benefit himself. The accusations include using county equipment, vehicles and employees in his private forensic pathology business.

In the most notorious charge, Dr. Wecht is accused of trading unclaimed cadavers to Carlow College in Pittsburgh for use of space to conduct his private autopsies.

He originally faced 43 more charges. Those were recently dropped to streamline the case, prosecutors said, but also because the government found that many private packages it thought had been mailed using county resources had been hand-delivered.

Dr. Wecht, 76, has pleaded not guilty to all the charges.

In the balance hangs not only potential prison time for Dr. Wecht, but also his reputation, which has grown since he first rose to prominence in the 1970s for opposing the single-bullet theory in President John F. Kennedy's assassination.

This is a business where you're as good as your last case, said Dr. James G. Young, past president of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, who has known Dr. Wecht for 26 years. It's not the way anyone would want to end their career.

Dr. Wecht's lawyers have said that the case really amounts to minor accounting irregularities that should have simply been handled within the county.

Mary Beth Buchanan, the United States attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania, would not comment.

But last fall, after one of Dr. Wecht's lawyers -- Richard L. Thornburgh, an attorney general in the Reagan and first Bush administrations and a former governor of Pennsylvania -- told Congress he thought the case was politically motivated, Ms. Buchanan did issue a statement.

Despite Mr. Thornburgh's baseless protestations, the United States Attorney's Office for the Western District of Pennsylvania does not make decisions, including decisions to investigate, based on the political affiliation of any of its subjects, targets or defendants, and it did not do so in Dr. Wecht's case, Ms. Buchanan said through her lawyer, Roscoe C. Howard Jr.

One of Ms. Buchanan's assistants, Stephen S. Stallings, is the lead prosecutor in the Wecht case. In recent years, Mr. Stallings oversaw the undercover investigation and prosecution of several top officials in the Allegheny County Sheriff's Office.

Twenty-seven years ago, Dr. Wecht faced charges very similar to the current case, when he was accused -- then by the county district attorney -- of using his public office to benefit his private business. Dr. Wecht fought those charges, too, eventually winning in court, though he did later pay the county $200,000 to settle civil claims related to the accusations.

[Illustration]PHOTO: Dr. Cyril H. Wecht heading to court this month in Pittsburgh. (PHOTOGRAPH BY KEITH SRAKOCIC/ASSOCIATED PRESS)