Former Harvard morgue manager Cedric Lodge, 57, of Goffstown, New Hampshire, has filed a plea agreement with prosecutors in federal court two years after his arrest.
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The former manager of Harvard Medical School's morgue is set to plead guilty two years after his arrest for his involvement in a scheme in which a nationwide network of people bought and sold human remains stolen from Harvard and a mortuary in Arkansas.
Investigators have accused Cedric Lodge, 57, of letting buyers come into the morgue to pick what remains they wanted to buy, then stealing parts of donated cadavers like brains, skin and bones, taking them to his home in Goffstown, New Hampshire, and shipping them to buyers through the mail.
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A plea agreement filed in U.S. District Court in the Middle District of Pennsylvania shows Lodge has agreed to plead guilty to a charge of interstate transport of stolen goods. It carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.
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SIGN UP Lodge, who was arrested on five charges back in 2023, had been attempting to fight the charges, and his lawyer had even filed a motion in March to dismiss the charges against him. But now it appears they have changed course and are accepting a plea deal. A hearing date for this plea agreement has not been set yet.
Lodge's plea deal comes a year after his wife, Denise Lodge, accepted a plea deal of her own, in which she also agreed to plead guilty to a federal charge of interstate transport of stolen goods for shipping stolen human body parts, including hands, feet, and heads to buyers.
Denise Lodge’s attorney said in February 2024 that her client's husband “was doing this and she just kind of went along with it.” She said ”what happened here is wrong" but no one lost money and the matter was "more of a moral and ethical dilemma ... than a criminal case.”
The body part-stealing scheme stretched from 2018 to early 2023, according to a complaint filed in federal court in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
Bodies donated to Harvard Medical School are used for education, teaching or research purposes. Once they are no longer needed, the cadavers are usually cremated and the ashes are returned to the donor’s family or buried in a cemetery.
The Associated Press contributed to this report
