Summary

On October 7, 2015, Stephen Gore pleaded guilty to State charges in Maricopa County Superior Court, Phoenix, Arizona, related to a scheme in which he obtained donated body parts under false pretenses and provided his unsuspecting customers with contaminated or infectious human tissue. Our investigation focused on allegations that Gore’s company violated USDOT regulations and shipped undeclared infectious human tissue without disclosing the hazards and safety risks associated with the cargo.  

Gore owned and operated Biological Resource Center of Arizona (BRCAZ), a business that specialized in providing donated deceased human bodies, organs, and tissue for medical research to foreign and domestic universities, researchers, and/or medical device companies. He admitted to fraudulently acquiring “willed-to-science” cadaver parts from unwitting and non-consenting donors, for the purposes of dismemberment and sale to a network of medical researchers, medical equipment developers, and pharmaceutical end users. Many body parts were known by Gore to be infectious or diseased before he had them packaged, transported, and sold to unsuspecting buyers. Additionally, he provided unknowing vendors with donated body parts for unauthorized uses according to the donors’ wishes.

We are working this case jointly with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Arizona Attorney General’s Office.