Grotesque scandal like a 'cheap horror movie'

Records revealed shady past
John Pipolo — a dental technician who worked side-by-side with Mastromarino until 1999 and co-authored “Smile” — described him as “the Mickey Mantle of oral surgeons” for his willingness to “do surgeries other doctors wouldn’t dare attempt.”

“A wonderful family man is what I saw,” Pipolo said.

There were several malpractice lawsuits — an occupational hazard for a doctor tackling tough cases, his lawyer says. But dental board records reveal other troubles.

Mastromarino was arrested in July 2000 for being under the influence of drugs and in possession of a hypodermic needle and Demerol, according to the documents. His lawyer said he became addicted to painkillers while being treated for a back problem.

The criminal charge was eventually dropped, but because his urine tested positive for controlled substances — cocaine and another painkiller, Meperidine — he agreed to surrender his dentistry license for six months and enter rehab. He was later caught practicing without a license — a second offense resulting in a four-year suspension from the profession.

But by then, he had begun another career.

Using his contacts with companies that produce material for dental implants, Mastromarino opened Biomedical Tissue Services in Fort Lee, N.J., just across the George Washington Bridge from upper Manhattan, in 2001.

In 2002, Mastromarino sought licensing to do business in New York. As the company’s chief officer, he was asked on an application to the state Department of Health whether he “had charges sustained of administrative violations of local, state or federal laws, rules and regulations ... concerning the provisions of health care.”

“No,” he answered.

The license was granted.

Quest for new bodies
Femurs. Tendons. Heart valves. Swatches of skin from the thighs, stomach and back.

The body parts, though no longer of any value to their owners, became big business for Mastromarino. His lawyer said he was among the first in the industry to figure out that one way to meet the high demand for donated human tissue — traditionally procured in the controlled environment of hospitals — was to turn to funeral homes.

Deals were cut with funeral directors in New York City, Rochester, N.Y., Philadelphia and New Jersey: BTS would pay a $1,000 “facility fee” to harvest body parts on their premises.

Three-man teams were dispatched to mortuaries. Two workers would extract the parts. A third would bag them and put them on ice until they could be stored in a freezer at BTS headquarters.

What’s been portrayed as a gruesome exercise was purely clinical, Cruceta said.

“We took our time with what we did,” Cruceta said. “We never made fun of any of these donors. We always treated everyone with respect.”

Internal documents from BTS suggest the company had, at least on paper, a strict set of rules for obtaining signed consent for the procedures. A script instructed interviewers to tell family members, “We are about to proceed with the medical social history questionnaire. I have about 40 questions and this interview should take about 20 minutes.”

Sample question: “Did the deceased have a tattoo, ear or other body piercing or acupuncture in the past 12 months in which shared instruments are known to have been used?”

No questions asked
Unfortunately, it seems that no questions were asked in hundreds of cases.

Family members have told investigators no one sought permission for body-part donations. The signatures at the bottom of the questionnaires, they said, were forged.

Mastromarino, through his lawyer, has blamed funeral home directors, insisting it was their job to get consent. The directors say it was the other way around.

As early as September 2003, the FDA detected trouble at BTS.

In a routine inspection, an investigator found evidence the company had failed to properly sterilize its equipment, and had no records of how it had disposed of tissue that failed screening for HIV, hepatitis and syphilis.

But nothing came of it. The FDA backed off after Mastromarino insisted he had voluntarily cleaned up his operation. In a letter, he told officials he would “look forward to your agency revisiting our facility.”

Meanwhile, money rolled in. Processors who bought from Mastromarino — one body could bring the company $7,000 — were more interested in his ability to meet demand than in the man himself.

“We had very little contact with him,” said Marshall Cothran, chief executive of Central Texas Regional Blood and Tissue Center.

BTS made Mastromarino wealthy. He, his wife Barbara and two young sons lived in a $1.5 million house less than two miles from BTS headquarters.

“He used to tell us all the time that he didn’t need to do this, that basically he had enough money to live his lifestyle without working,” Cruceta said.

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