A former Harvard Medical School morgue manager accused of stealing and selling organs and other parts of cadavers donated to the university for medical research and education has agreed to plead guilty.
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Cedric Lodge, who managed Harvard’s morgue for more than two decades before his 2023 arrest, has agreed to plead guilty to transporting stolen goods across state lines, according to a plea agreement filed on Wednesday in federal court in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.
He opted to plead guilty rather than proceed to trial as scheduled on May 5 alongside a woman who prosecutors said bought body parts from Lodge and his wife, Denise Lodge, who had pleaded guilty last year.
Lodge, 57, faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. His lawyer declined to comment on Thursday.
Prosecutors said Lodge from 2018 to 2022 stole parts from cadavers including heads, brains, skin and bones and transported them from Harvard’s morgue in Massachusetts to his home in Goffstown, New Hampshire, where he and his wife sold them.
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Prosecutors said Lodge at times allowed potential buyers into the university’s morgue to examine human bodies donated to Harvard and select which parts to buy. The buyers mostly resold the body parts, prosecutors said.