The government is requesting a longer prison sentence of two years for a Minnesota man who confessed to being involved in a scheme to purchase and sell stolen body parts.
In a sentencing memorandum filed on Monday in U.S. Middle District Court, Assistant U.S. Attorney Sean A. Camoni argued that Matthew Lampi, 53, of East Bethel, and others involved in the scheme exhibited behavior that was far more egregious than what is typically seen in a stolen goods case.
He used the selling of the remains of a stillborn boy named Lux, who had been stolen from an Arkansas mortuary before being cremated, as an example.
The prosecutor has requested that Judge Matthew W. Brann sentence Lampi to two years in prison when he sentences him on January 2. Lampi pleaded guilty last February to interstate transportation of stolen items.
One of Lampi’s collaborators was Jeremy K. Pauley, a former resident of East Pennsboro Township in Cumberland County who currently resides in Susquehanna County.
Pauley pleaded guilty to interstate transportation of stolen items and conspiracy to commit the same crime and is currently awaiting sentencing.
Camoni expressed shock at the actions of Lampi and his coconspirators. He contended that the sentence guidelines do not take into account such behavior.
The government recognizes that historical specimens of bones, skulls, or even teeth may be so old that determining their original origin is impossible, he said.
But there is no known legal way for a private collector or vendor to obtain internal organs, which traffickers refer to as “wet specimens” or “wets”; thus they must be stolen, he said.
The prosecutor supplied this information to bolster his claim for a sentence that exceeds the guidelines.
Starting in October 2021, Pauley began purchasing human remains from Candace Chapman-Scott, an employee of Arkansas Central Mortuary Services, an Arkansas incinerator.
She has pleaded guilty in Arkansas and is awaiting sentence.
Pauley purchased brains, internal organs, and two stillborn fetus carcasses. In February 2022, a funeral home sent Lux to the mortuary to be cremated.
Lux’s mother was saddened when she lost her baby due to early delivery and had a pendant made to hold his ashes. However, the ashes she was given were not Lux’s cremated remains.
She wept all over again when she learned that her son’s remains had been stolen and sold as “part of this macabre, underworld trade.”
In April 2023, Lampi voluntarily turned over Lux’s body to the FBI via an attorney.
Pauley had sent Lux’s remains, along with other body parts, to Lampi in exchange for five human skulls worth $1,550.
Lampi purchased and sold human remains from Pauley. Investigators discovered 71 payments from Pauley to Lampi totaling $119,198, as well as eight payments from Lampi to Pauley totaling $8,890.
Lampi earned $182,158 in 2021 from his “antiques” buying and selling business, which he called “Skull Full of Ink.” He lists 25 human skulls among his personal possessions.
Because Lampi did not steal human remains and voluntarily returned Lux’s body, the government considers Lampi’s culpability to be lower than that of most, if not all of the other defendants.
Camoni stated that the more than two-year investigation uncovered a covert, nationwide market for human remains, the majority of which are stolen.
In this case, positive evidence of the thefts was discovered, allowing the perpetrators to be held accountable, he stated.
If the evidence proves conclusively that the remains were stolen, “a message must be sent to this ‘oddities’ community, that the United States will not tolerate the theft and sale of human remains. “This dark trade must end,” he argues.
“It is no exaggeration to describe the twisted conduct in this case as a human rights violation, a desecration of societal norms and long-held human notions of right and wrong.”
The stolen body parts had been donated to Harvard Medical School and the University of Arkansas for Medical Science via their anatomical gift programs.
Cedric Lodge of Goffstown, New Hampshire, the Harvard morgue manager, is standing trial alongside Katrina Maclean of Salem, Massachusetts, and Joshua Taylor of West Lawn, Berks County.
Denise Lodge, Lodge’s wife, has also pleaded guilty but has not yet received her sentence.