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Brooklyn Funeral Home Sold Body Parts

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Nov 2, 2005 6:36 pm US/Eastern

Brooklyn Funeral Home Sold Body Parts

Civil Suit Alleges Theft For Organ Transplant

by Magee Hickey
NEW YORK (CBS) ― When 43-year-old Danette Kogut died of ovarian cancer three years ago, her family said she wanted her body to be cremated immediately. Now her family has been told that the Brooklyn District Attorney is investigating whether the English Brothers Funeral Home may have illegally sold bone and tissue from Kogut's cancer-stricken body.

"It hurts me that they violated her," said Wendy Kogut, Danette's sister. "I feel like they raped her because it was a violation of her wishes."

Investigators even say the funeral home forged a signature on the consent from.

"It's by my father-in-law who's been dead over 30 years, saying he gave consent, which isn't true," said Mattie Kogut Danette's mother.

The Kogut family's lawyer announced the second civil suit against the Brooklyn funeral home and the firm to which they allegedly sold the body parts, Biomedical Tissue Services of Fort Lee, NJ. Both issued a firm "no comment" pending the investigations.

The Kogut family worries that many other might be suffering what they're going through and how many others have unknowingly received tainted tissue for transplants.

"Their concern is for the people who are alive who received the tissue and bone of a cancer-riddled person," Lawyer Sanford Rubenstein said at a noontime news conference. "That's why it's so important to shine a light on what happened here in Brooklyn."

Sources in the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office said that as many as 80 families may have loved ones whose body parts were illegally sold through six Brooklyn funeral homes. The D.A.'s office may exhume up to 30 bodies, and this is just the beginning of the investigation.

A grand jury has not yet been convened.

(© MMV, CBS Broadcasting, Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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