DR. CYRIL WECHT Indictment details charges against famous coroner

Prosecutors also accused him of overcharging his private clients.
PITTSBURGH (AP) -- Dr. Cyril Wecht built a reputation as a coroner-for-hire in some of the country's most high-profile cases, making a name for himself and millions of dollars. Federal prosecutors accused him of doing it at the expense of taxpayers.
A grand jury returned an 84-count indictment Friday accusing Wecht, Allegheny County's medical examiner, of lining his pockets by having his county staff do private work and providing coroner's cadavers to a university in return for lab space for his company.
Wecht, 74, immediately resigned from his $105,000-a-year government job after the indictment.
The indictment accuses Wecht of using government employees to run private errands, such as buying tennis balls, and doing laboratory, billing and other work for his company between 1996 and December 2005.
Wecht's private clients were also bilked, prosecutors said, when he overcharged them and used fake travel agency bills to cover his tracks.
U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan declined to estimate how much Wecht -- who earned $4.65 million from his private practice from 1997 to 2004 -- might have gained from the alleged abuse.
His response
"Am I innocent? Yes, I'm innocent," Wecht, who will turn himself in later, told reporters Friday evening. Asked whether he thought the indictment would affect his reputation, Wecht said, "Reputation is in the eyes of the beholder, as is beauty. So we'll see how it plays out with people."
His defense team, including former U.S. Attorney General Dick Thornburgh, issued a statement Friday denying the charges and blaming local politics.
The attorneys said the investigation began as a result of "fanciful allegations" by the county district attorney, with whom Wecht has feuded. They also questioned the U.S. attorney's jurisdiction over his conduct in county government. The indictment said federal authorities have jurisdiction because the county uses some federal funds.
The federal investigation was well-known, and Wecht agreed to resign if indicted. His attorneys have said they met with federal prosecutors in recent weeks to try to negotiate a settlement.
The indictment charges Wecht with mail fraud, wire fraud, theft of honest services and theft from the county coroner's office.
Carlow University, where Buchanan said Wecht essentially used cadavers as rent for the last 21/2 years, was not accused of a crime. Buchanan said it wasn't clear how much university officials knew about the cadavers, which had no known next-of-kin and were supposed to be stored by Wecht's office.
What university said
Carlow officials said they cooperated with the federal investigation, weren't aware of Wecht's alleged violations, and provided space to Wecht as part of a course he taught on autopsy procedures there.
"At no time did Carlow trade laboratory space for cadavers," the university said in a statement. "Carlow believed that Dr. Wecht was acting lawfully and that the autopsies performed were part of his private practice and had no relationship to his duties as county coroner."
FBI agents seized computers and private files from Wecht's office last spring, and three of his employees resigned shortly afterward. Two people who worked for him were indicted, one accused of performing private lab work on county time, the other of submitting false mileage reimbursement invoices for work done in neighboring counties.
Wecht has denied doing private work on county time during the decades he had held a government job. Testifying for the defense in a Colorado murder trial on Thursday, he was asked by the prosecutor whether he had been using his public offices to do private business for some time. Wecht said no.
In 1981, Wecht was cleared of criminal charges alleging that he used his staff to do private work on county time while coroner. He also faced a related civil court order to repay $252,000 in that case, and eventually paid back $200,000 after a decade of litigation.
Wecht gained fame in the 1960s when he criticized the Warren Commission's findings in the President Kennedy assassination, and he has consulted on cases including the deaths of Laci Peterson and JonBenet Ramsey.
In the months preceding the O.J. Simpson homicide trial in 1994, he became a frequent talk-show guest, conjecturing about the significance of blood samples and other evidence. His testimony at the trial of Claus von Bulow may have helped acquit the Rhode Island socialite of charges that he tried to kill his wife.