By Jon King / jking@whmi.com


An effort has again been denied to dismiss murder charges against two men charged for their roles in a deadly 2012 fungal meningitis outbreak.

On Monday, Livingston County Circuit Court Judge Michael Hatty denied motions filed by lawyers for Barry Cadden and Glenn Chin to reverse the decision of 53rd District Court Judge Shauna Murphy who determined in August there was enough evidence to bind the pair over for trial on 11 counts each of second degree murder.

The ruling means that both Cadden and Chinn will stand trial in Livingston County on the charges following a previous ruling by Hatty denying a motion to move the trial elsewhere. They were charged with Second Degree Murder in 2019 by the Michigan Attorney General’s Office for their roles in running the New England Compounding Center.

Cadden was a part-owner and Chin was a supervising pharmacist at the facility in which authorities say lax conditions were allowed to infect steroids produced there that led to the 2012 outbreak that killed more than 100 people nationwide and sickened nearly a thousand others. Investigators connected the compounding pharmacy to Michigan clinics, including Michigan Pain Specialists in Genoa Township, which had dispensed the NECC contaminated steroids.

While a trial date has yet to be set, various pre-trial hearings are set next month, along with a May 13th hearing on a prosecution motion to have both defendants tried at the same time.