DETROIT (WWJ) - A father and son from Chicago have been charged with selling diseased body parts -- some to the Detroit Medical Center.
A federal document alleges Donald Green, Sr. and Donald Green, Jr. knowingly sold a specimen to the DMC's sports medicine department in 2013 that "had previously tested positive for hepatitis."
The DMC tells WWJ the specimen was used for research and not for any patient care. The health care provider says it found out about the issue when the case was filed.
The scheme is reportedly related to a case out of Grosse Pointe Park, which landed Arthur Rathburn in prison for nine years after a jury found him guilty of fraud for failing to disclose body parts he sold had been infected with hepatitis or HIV.
Evidence collected in the Rathburn case allegedly led investigators to the Greens, who were running the Biological Resource Center of Illinois.
The father and son team is accused of taking cadavers that were supposed to be donated to medical research and selling them on the black market. In once case, according to reports, a woman was told her son's body was donated to colleges and research centers when he was actually dismembered and his remains sold off as parts.
The pair is also accused of concealing known diseases in some specimens -- such as with the DMC.
Greene Sr. is charged with wire fraud, while Greene Jr. is charged with intentionally concealing a crime.