(male announcer) In the criminal justice system,
the people are represented by two separate
yet equally important groups--
the police who investigate crime
and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders.
These are their stories.
You wanna explain to her this ain't the Four Seasons?
I swear, she hits that button again,
she's gonna feel a whole new source of pain.
Hurry! Her son Michael!
He's on the floor.
[panting and groaning]
He's not breathing! I don't know what happened.
He--he just collapsed. I don't--come on, hurry!
Michael, baby, please talk to me!
Come on, baby. Please, talk to me.
Help him! Help him!
Ma'am, I need to look at him.
Please, please, give me space.
Come on, let the nurses see him.
Code blue! Code blue!
Four Benson 322!
Get a crash cart now! Michael, talk to me!
(man) Let the nurses do their job, okay?
(Ashley) Oh, my God. Breathe, Michael, breathe!
Breathe! He said that his head hurt and then he just collapsed.
Oh, my God, he's dying!
(man) It's okay, let the nurse do her job.
(Ashley) Michael, please, breathe, breathe!
(Dr. Havens) His name is Michael Jones.
Just the two of them in the room when he died?
No, her publicist was there as well.
He's waiting to talk to you.
So what makes you think foul play?
Well, there's no obvious trauma.
But he was fine one minute and dead the next.
That happened to my Uncle Harry.
They called it a heart attack.
A 19-year-old kid? It's not likely.
(Dr. Havens) As soon as we pronounced, we got everybody out.
Nothing's been touched in the room either.
(Cassady) Is that blood coming out of his mouth?
(Dr. Havens) Pulmonary edema.
His lungs filled up as he was dying.
That can happen with a poisoning?
Absolutely.
Where's his mother now?
Down the hall. Sedated.
She's in a pretty bad way.
Change of clothes, some books.
Cell phone.
Who would have been in and out of this room tonight?
Nurses on shift. An attendant maybe.
Regular traffic.
What time is dinner, normally?
Um, 7:00, I think.
She's the patient.
The food was for her.
Maybe the kid wasn't supposed to be the victim.
[theme music]
*
That son of a bitch killed Michael.
I know he did.
Now, what are you gonna do about it?
Who are you talking about?
Miles Foster. My husband's son.
He and is sister Hillary
are contesting the will in court.
I have a legal right to that inheritance.
William signed the papers.
How much money are we talking about, exactly?
46 million.
I can't believe Michael's gone.
He was my baby.
We didn't get any time together.
Why'd they have to hurt him?
It's possible that you were the target here, Ms. Jones.
Oh, my God.
These people think they can do anything.
This Miles Foster,
has he ever threatened you before?
That's all he's done.
He's had men follow me home, crank phone calls.
Okay, we'll look into that.
Now, what's the state of the settlement?
There is no settlement.
All the money's tied up in probate.
What happens if you're not around?
Under the terms of the will,
everything goes to Miles and Hillary.
I want that man arrested!
Ashley Jones is accusing me of poisoning her son?
This nightmare won't end.
Well, we believe someone intended
to poison her.
I applaud them for the effort,
but I assure you I had nothing to do with it, Detective.
You and your sister stood to gain.
We're about to win our lawsuit.
We have no reason to do something like that.
(Cassady) She can appeal, can't she?
She can take it to the Supreme Court,
for all I care.
The woman's been exposed as a first-rate con artist.
How'd she manage to stake a claim in the first place?
By manipulating my father.
92, in declining health,
she tricked him into marriage,
and contrived a way to amend his estate plans.
Maybe he was in love.
I know she certainly wasn't.
My father died less than a year after they were married.
She's used every scheme in the book
to get her hands on that money.
Knowing her, she probably killed her own son,
just to accuse me.
Well, she said you threatened her in the past.
People following her home.
We hired private investigators
to document her lifestyle.
It was never intended as a threat.
Talk to my attorney.
Allow her to enlighten you.
(Heath) William Foster was halfway senile.
Ms. Jones worked on him till he didn't know which way was up.
Within a month, the pre-nup was negated,
and she was a heartbeat away from retirement.
That's not gold digging. That's grave robbing.
You do understand how this looks?
Detective, Miles Foster has no motive
for getting even.
His lawsuit is wrapping up quite well for us.
Because of something you have on Ashley.
Mm-hmm.
A signed affidavit from her personal trainer.
Courtesy of Mr. Simon, my investigator.
He was sleeping with Ashley
from the day she married William Foster.
Why'd the trainer tell you about it?
'Cause she used him like toilet paper.
He thought he was moving out of the gym,
and up to the penthouse.
Are there any more like him?
Plenty.
She was a kept woman for years.
How does her son figure in all this?
He didn't.
She shipped him off when he was a kid
to live with relatives upstate.
(Green) Any idea why he came back?
Let's just say the tire doesn't roll far from the mobile home.
Money.
She's been working men since the age of consent.
Her own son shows up, starts working her.
Call it karma.
(Cassady) A drug buy.
I shot those photos outside Ashley's apartment last week.
Hey, Lieu. Yo.
The toxicology report from that hospital food
came back negative.
No poison in the ravioli.
So maybe the kid did die of an overdose.
His mother and her publicist says
he was acting totally normal before he died.
Well, what about that photo?
Cassady's at Narcotics,
seeing if they can identify the dude.
And what'd the M.E. say?
She's still not done with the post.
She has to order more tests to verify the cause of death.
Look, I don't want to keep spinning our wheels
if this isn't a homicide.
Call her again, light a fire.
You're gonna have to call her,
because she's sick of talking to me.
Our wannabe player is Marco Penzler.
He's had a couple of run-ins with Narcotics.
Mostly low-level heroin deals.
He's got a bench warrant on a marijuana summons.
Keep reading.
He also has an attempted murder charge.
What's that about?
The D.A. declined to prosecute,
because of lack of evidence.
But the word is he pushed a burn bag
with roach poison.
Put a kid in the hospital.
He could have done the same thing to Michael.
Any contact with Marco before the kid died?
Not that I could tell. (Green) It's possible, though--
There was a call on Michael's cell records
that we couldn't link up.
It could be a disposable cell phone.
Which has dealer written all over it.
Pull Marco in.
Okay.
I can read the sign on the door.
You're homicide.
What's that got to do with me?
Michael Jones is a client of yours, right?
I saw he died on the news.
Yep, he died.
And now here you are.
Right. Here I am.
You know, they said, I burned that dude,
but it ain't true.
That's why the D.A. dropped the charges.
Except maybe it's happened again,
and it's coming back to you again, Marco.
We know that Michael talked to you that day.
And we know you dealt to him in that past.
Did he OD?
Did you sell him heroin?
Didn't have any to sell.
Fashion Week cleaned me out.
Must've scored some gutter junk that messed him up.
You know what I think?
I think he owed you.
Came to you for another favor, and you gave him the bad stuff.
Mikey didn't have any problem coming up with cash.
He got it from that fine MILF of his.
(Cassady) Then who'd he hook up with?
You're the dick.
All I know is he didn't die from nothin' I gave him.
'Cause I didn't give him nothin'.
Autopsy's starting. M.E.'s waiting for us.
Perfect.
Well, Marco, in about ten minutes,
we'll know if you're on the level.
His tox showed moderate levels of heroin,
and a couple prescription medications.
He died of the drug cocktail?
That probably helped him along,
but the actual cause of death
was a golf ball-sized metastatic tumor
in his brain.
Well, he complained of a headache
before he collapsed.
Yeah, I bet he did.
Probably had a massive seizure.
(Green) So he died of complications from cancer?
Not so fast.
I'm ruling it a homicide.
How do you figure?
Then non-recreational pharmaceuticals in his blood
were cyclosporine and prednisone.
Immunosuppressants.
People take them when they get a new kidney,
or a new heart.
What did he get?
New legs.
See here and here?
He got cancer from bone grafts.
You got it.
You're looking at first-class surgery,
with third-rate donor material.
How'd that happen? It shouldn't have.
The bone should have been screened and sterilized.
No way this came from a legitimate tissue bank.
Are we talking about black market body parts?
I typed the cells in the tumor.
Even called in a neuropath consultant
for confirmation.
This young man died of ovarian cancer.
Rodgers thinks the surgery is legit,
but it's anybody's guess where those donor bones came from.
Well, what are we talking about here?
Illegal chop shop? Stolen body parts?
That would explain why the cancer wasn't detected.
Any real tissue bank would screen for diseases.
If that stuff gets into the distribution chain--
I don't want to hear about it.
Who's been notified so far?
Well, the M.E.'s office reached out
to the Health Department.
They're issuing bulletins to area hospitals.
Do we have any leads
on who performed this operation on the kid?
We got nothing.
There's over 100 medical facilities
in New York City that can do bone grafts.
What about when it happened?
Rodgers thinks that, judging by the healing of the bone,
it was about a year and a half ago.
At that time, Michael was a heroin addict
living on a street.
I doubt he was insured.
Yeah, well, I doubt any transplant hospital
would even take your temperature
without proof of insurance.
Meaning somebody came through for him in a big way,
because that procedure was not cheap.
Talk to his mother again.
See if she knows anything.
(Ashley) Michael admitted he'd been homeless
and used drugs.
I said, "So what?"
We were making a fresh start.
I didn't want to dwell on the past.
His or yours?
Look.
I may not have always been there...
I had a substance abuse problem
of my own to deal with, okay?
Ms. Jones, help us out.
We don't know anything about what happened to your son
when he was on the street,
except he had major surgery.
(Cassady) Seems pretty unusual,
considering he was a homeless drug addict at the time.
What do you want me to say?
I don't know anything about it.
Can you tell us anything?
Old friends he might have mentioned.
Places he used to hang out.
Anything?
Um...
A few weeks ago,
Michael had a girl in the apartment.
She looked like she'd been crying.
She left pretty quickly after I came home.
Did you get a name?
Natasha, I think.
She was an old girlfriend.
I didn't press on the details.
Anything else?
Um, her shirt.
There was a name on her shirt.
Delancey's. Delaney's.
(Natasha) Me and Mike, homeless junkies.
I can't believe I lived that way.
I hadn't seen him in almost two years,
then we reconnected.
It was obvious that he was still using.
I told him I didn't want to see him again
if he wasn't gonna get clean.
Do you know how he broke his legs?
Back then we were doing little rips
to keep up with our habits.
We got caught boosting an air bag.
Mike took off across Queens Boulevard.
A taxi hit him.
(Green) Where'd they take him?
I don't know.
The paramedics wouldn't let me go with him.
I figured he was dead.
I mean, he looked halfway there
when they put him in the ambulance.
If he got hit on Queens Boulevard,
do you think maybe they took him
to Queen City hospital?
I checked right after it happened.
They didn't have him listed as a patient.
Well, is it possible that he was admitted
under another name?
What name?
Well, maybe he had somebody else's insurance card
or I.D. or something.
Now I know why I couldn't find him.
Yeah.
We found a wallet in the glove box
of a car that we had ripped.
The I.D. sort of looked like Mike.
He kept it in case we got busted.
Do you remember the name?
We used to make fun of it,
'cause it sounded rich-- Huvey Wilson.
Mr. Huvey T. Wilson, a.k.a. John Doe.
Two shattered femurs.
Looks like we treated him about a year and a half ago.
You did bone grafts on him to repair his legs?
Not according to this.
The kid had insurance issues.
The card probably came back stolen.
All right, so if he can't pay,
what happens next?
Well, if you can't pay, you get the blue light special.
In this case, double amputation.
You've gotta be kidding me.
Hey, blame the bean counters.
We don't take any pleasure cutting off someone's legs.
Look doctor, up until two days ago,
he was walking upright.
We know he got bone grafts on both legs.
Maybe he transferred out.
There's not way he got that kind of charity here.
What does his chart say?
Um...
Missing a couple pages.
It happens.
Okay, do you have any idea where this surgery
might have been done?
There's a non-profit orthopedic clinic in Manhattan
and they've taken some of our hard luck cases in the past.
Dr. Vaughn runs the program.
The guy's practically pining for sainthood.
This way.
(Dr. Vaughn) You're sure about this?
Ovarian cancer?
The M.E. thinks it came from the bones you used
to fix his legs.
I'm sorry, I highly doubt that.
The M.E. seems pretty confident
it came from the grafts.
Doctor, we need to know where the donor bones came from.
We use several procurement companies
and tissue banks.
It could have come from any one of them.
Well, how do you cover your uninsured patients?
Through grants and fund-raising.
Our clinic has an operating budget
of almost $15 million.
Most of that goes to subsidizing patient care.
$15 million.
And all that comes from financial donations?
People give generously
to help us care for the working poor
and indigent.
To help a patient like Michael,
who almost lost his legs because he was homeless.
And you don't occasionally cut corners?
We may be a non-profit clinic,
but our quality of care is on par
with any university hospital.
Look, Detective, it's extremely rare
for cancer to metastasize the bone.
Michael must have contracted the disease
some other way.
Now, as far as the graft bones are concerned,
I'm telling you I don't know which company procured them.
Don't you at least have the donor's name?
The provenance has to be tracked somehow.
I have a copy of the donor's death certificate.
That's it.
"Karen Kendall." 21 years old.
You'll also notice the cause of death.
It wasn't ovarian cancer.
Karen was driving home from college
for spring break.
A truck cut her off in the tunnel
coming into Manhattan.
The doctors said she was brain dead.
We took her off life support
six days after the accident.
Did you donate any of her organs
or tissue at that time?
No, no, we never consented to anything like that.
The hospital asked us to, but it was too much
with Karen dying so suddenly.
Which hospital?
Chase General.
They said they'd take care of her.
But you're saying they did it anyway?
We think that somebody did.
My God.
Had your daughter been diagnosed
with ovarian cancer?
Cancer? No.
She was in peak health.
She ran marathons.
Mr. and Mrs. Kendall, we're gonna need to verify
what happened to your daughter's body.
So the Medical Examiner's gonna want to look at her remains.
She was cremated.
Who handled the cremation?
Uh--
Bicks Funeral Home.
Tony Bicks helped us with the arrangements.
[sobbing]
(Bicks) Talk to the hospital morgue. They're the body butchers.
(Green) The hospital says you picked up Karen Kendall's body
within two hours of her death.
Apparently, it would have taken too long
to harvest her remains there.
I'm sorry, I don't remember.
You signed her out. We have the time.
Well, if that's what it says, then that's what I did.
What was the rush?
I was probably there on another run.
She was the only body that day.
What are you getting at?
What she's getting at is there's a small window of time
to harvest her remains before they're unusable.
Unusable and worthless to a paying tissue bank.
And you think that's what I did?
That body was cremated,
which means you could have taken anything you wanted,
and nobody would know
that the family didn't give their consent.
I think you're making a lot of
unfounded accusations here, Detective.
Cool, how 'bout we have a look at your records?
We can straighten this out right now.
I think you can take it up with my attorney.
We can get a warrant if we have to.
Meyers, Prescott, and Mendelbaum.
They're in the Yellow Pages.
You call 'em. We'll wait.
278 bodies went through Bicks Funeral Home last year.
Of those, 213 did not consent to donate tissue or bone.
And most of those names are now showing up
on the donor lists.
Who'd Bick sell to?
It could have been any number of tissue banks or brokers.
Every company I talked to was not willing to admit
that they bought directly from him.
Yeah, well, worried about liability.
This stuff could be scattered across the country.
(Cassady) I pulled the LUDs from the funeral home.
Bicks called Vaughn's clinic on a regular basis.
You think Vaughn knew what he was getting?
(Cassady) He said he didn't.
And he might not have, if Bicks was forging
consent forms, death certificates--
He wasn't exactly helpful when we talked to him.
How much money are we talking about?
Okay, you want the list?
These are non-organ parts-- veins, cartilage,
tendons, bones.
One body is worth over 200 grand.
Do Bicks' financials bear that out?
He's got a little something in the bank,
but nothing like this kind of cash flow.
He's gotta be hiding it.
Even still,
we can't pin him for the murder of Michael Jones.
We can get him for Grand Larceny and Forgery, right?
Only if you can prove that Bicks was the one
who pillaged the corpses.
A lot of those bodies didn't get cremated.
Talk to the families.
We need to start digging people up.
This was pure slice and dice.
I've got corpses missing bones
from their legs and arms.
Major veins and tendons are also gone.
Take a look at this.
Are those pipes?
PVC, for plumbing.
To maintain the shape of the limbs
for the viewing, would be my guess.
I also found bloody aprons and gloves
dumped inside a couple of abdominal cavities.
Can we trace any of this to Bicks?
Here's a preliminary.
CSU pulled two latents off the inside of a pipe.
Guess who?
(man) I know that this has been very, very difficult...
You go.
You have to remember
all of the wonderful things about Bob...
Tony Bicks, step this way, please.
[quietly] Keep your voice down.
You're under arrest for Grand Larceny and Forgery.
What are you doing? I'm in the middle--
You have the right to remain silent.
Anything you say can be used against you in a court of law.
(male clerk) Docket number 83522-- People v. Anthony Bicks.
Charge is Grand Larceny in the Second Degree,
Forgery in the Second Degree.
Mr. Bicks pleads Not Guilty, Your Honor.
People on bail?
The defendant altered official state death certificates
to facilitate an illegal trade in stolen body parts.
I'm sure that forging his passport
isn't beyond his capabilities.
People seek remand.
That's absurd.
Not one of these charges is over a C felony.
(Rubirosa) Your Honor, we are still exhuming bodies.
The full scope of this criminal enterprise
is expanding.
The victims in this case were already dead, correct?
Not true.
Mr. Bicks' actions implicate him
in the homicide of Michael Jones.
Mr. Jones contracted ovarian cancer
from illegally harvested bone he received
during a transplant.
Lot of dots to connect there, Counselor.
There is a murder indictment pending, Your Honor.
Then let's revisit bail if they file.
I'm not letting Dr. Frankenstein here off so easy.
Bail is 300,000. Cash only.
He can't make that, Your Honor.
Maybe he's got something he can sell.
[bangs gavel]
(Rubirosa) Looks like Bicks'll post tomorrow.
His lawyer wouldn't discuss a plea.
She's waiting to see if we make good
on our murder indictment.
Judge Goldberg's betting against us.
We know Bicks harvested Karen Kendall's bones.
We know Dr. Vaughn transplanted them
into the victim.
I find it hard to believe
that Vaughn was totally in the dark.
It's circumstantial.
If we can't link them together with shared intent,
we can't make a case.
The phone records aren't proof of complicity?
It'd be easy to say the calls were related
to fund-raising.
Bicks has given money to the clinic in the past.
Illegal profits could have been disguised
as financial donations.
We still haven't been able to trace where the money went.
What does Dr. Vaughn have to say for himself?
I was referred to his attorney--
Dave Seaver.
He's not malpractice, by the way.
Strictly criminal law.
That should tell us something.
We still can't prove that Vaughn knew
where the body parts were coming from.
Not without flipping Bicks.
The clinic's records might shed some light.
Do you really think we're gonna get a subpoena
for medical records?
Half the judges on the roster
have had hip replacements.
Given the issue, I don't think we'll have a problem.
Not bad. Yeah?
"Not bad" got me a full ride to Georgetown next fall.
You're Jason Carter, right?
Man, I must be dreaming you came here looking for me.
I'm Connie Rubirosa,
with the District Attorney's office.
I needed to talk to you about Dr. Adam Vaughn.
Yeah, what's up with Dr. Vaughn?
Did he perform surgery on your knee last year?
Yeah, I wouldn't have been able to play ball if he hadn't.
Why you wanna know?
Jason smashed up his knee
at the end of his junior year.
They called it a tibial-plateau fracture.
I shattered my kneecap, basically.
Now you're saying the bone they used to fix him up
was stolen out of some other body?
As far as we can tell,
Jason was one of two people
who received parts from this donor.
A young man about your age died of cancer.
He contracted it from a bone
Dr. Vaughn transplanted in his legs.
Dr. Vaughn wouldn't do nothin' like that.
What do you want with Jason?
We're building a murder case against the man
who illegally harvested the body.
We need to be able to prove
that the cancer came from this donor,
and not another source, like a blood transfusion.
How do you do that?
Jason would need to undergo
a biopsy of his knee.
Yeah, I don't know about that.
I understand this is an unusual request.
Unusual. You're coming in my home.
Telling me he might have cancer?
We need Jason's help to make this case.
No.
I'm calling Dr. Vaughn right now.
We're getting to the bottom of this.
Ms. Carter, Dr. Vaughn is a suspect
in our investigation.
Excuse me?
That man gave Jason a second chance
at going to a top college.
He's getting the benefit of the doubt from me.
You need to know that if he refuses,
I will have no choice but to get a court order
to compel him.
Then I guess you'll have to do that.
Jason Carter is not under any obligation
to help Mr. McCoy.
Except that the bone in his knee
was illegally obtained.
The notion that the state has no recourse
in an investigation is not right.
(Jeffs) Mr. Carter is not a target
of the investigation, Your Honor.
It's a major intrusion, on an innocent third party.
Mr. Carter may be a victim of the crime.
Maybe he'd like to know.
As his Fourth Amendment rights
are flushed down the toilet?
Your Honor, my client would prefer to handle
any health issue privately.
(McCoy) The Supreme Court held in Winston v. Lee
that compulsion of minor surgery
to obtain evidence of a crime
is not unreasonable.
I would hardly call the procedure minor.
Mr. Carter would have a piece of his bone tissue removed,
which could destroy his knee all over again.
Winston concerned surgery on a patient
who was also a suspect in the crime.
The decision wasn't based on that.
It was based on the level of intrusion.
And the court ultimately denied the request
because of that.
The court left the door open in those cases
where the public interest outweighs the intrusion.
And this is one of those cases.
The New York Department of Health
and the CDC are involved,
due to the potential for a major health crisis.
We're not making this request lightly.
Is there no other way around it?
We don't believe so.
From a search of Dr. Vaughn's records,
Jason Carter is the only other patient we know of
who received remains from Karen Kendall.
And what's a biopsy going to prove, Mr. McCoy?
That the bone graft Michael Jones received
gave him cancer and caused his death.
I'm reluctantly granting the request.
Mr. Carter,
I understand this court is asking a lot of you
with this order.
If I didn't feel there were larger
public health issues here,
I would not have decided this way.
And frankly, young man,
I think you ought to know, one way or the other.
They're saying it's the same thing?
(Rubirosa) Yeah.
I don't feel bad or nothin'.
The doctors say it's still early.
You can treat it. Beat it.
How am I gonna pay for this?
Think Medicaid's gonna give him what he needs?
You'd have a solid civil case against anyone we convict.
It could mean a large settlement.
(McCoy) Jason,
I can't imagine how hard this must be for you right now.
What do you want me to do?
Testify at trial.
Dr. Vaughn didn't mean to do this, did he?
(Bicks) Damn right he knew!
I'm not going down for what Vaughn did.
Not for murder.
You were an active participant in the crime, Mr. Bicks.
You knew full well that Dr. Vaughn would use
the bone and tissue you illegally harvested.
That I harvested?
Hold on, Tony.
I want assurances you'll reduce the charges.
Your client proffers the information,
then we can discuss what it's worth.
Mr. Bicks?
I didn't take anything out of those bodies.
All I did was get a finder's fee,
and fix the paperwork.
Dr. Vaughn did the harvesting?
My hands shake.
You don't cut those tendons out right,
they're worthless.
How many bodies are we talking about?
500, maybe.
Maybe more.
He said his patients couldn't afford anything else.
This was only for his clinic?
No, he sold some of the parts
to tissue banks around the country.
As long as the paperwork looks good,
they don't ask where the stuff came from.
A lot of people walking around with that stuff in them.
(Prescott) Heard enough?
You won't file murder charges?
He testifies, I'll agree to concurrent sentences
for the Grand Larceny and the Forgery.
He does at least ten years.
Tissue, or even an organ--
(nurse) I asked them to wait, Doctor--
This can't wait.
Dr. Vaughn, please stand up.
I'm in the middle of a consultation.
You'll have to reschedule. Excuse me.
You're under arrest for the murder of Michael Jones.
(nurse) Doctor--
Everything's okay. Call my lawyer.
(Green) You have the right to remain silent.
Anything you say can be used against you
in a court of law.
Anthony Bicks has agreed to testify, Dr. Vaughn.
He's going to tell a jury about your gruesome enterprise.
Let's not confuse the issue here, Jack.
The illegal procurement of body parts is one thing.
How you get to murder--
It's called foresight. Dr. Vaughn knew the risks.
He evinced a depraved indifference
toward his patients.
You're wrong, Mr. McCoy.
I gave my patients consistently excellent care.
Tell that to Michael Jones.
Or Jason Carter. He's sick too, by the way.
(Seaver) This is a malpractice case.
This is a public health crisis.
Man One. 15 Years.
And he surrenders his medical license.
(Seaver) There was no way of knowing
Karen Kendall had ovarian cancer.
It wasn't diagnosed at the time of her death.
Dr. Vaughn didn't have access to her medical records
because the harvest was illegal.
He couldn't have known either way.
There are always complications in transplant medicine.
But weigh that against the fact
those butchers were going to amputate Michael's legs
because he was poor?
People like Karen Kendall have so much they can give,
and they don't.
I did what I had to do for my patient.
Our offer's on the table.
Then I guess we're done.
Even the noblest crusaders aren't beyond
a little hypocrisy.
It usually involves money.
That was my initial hunch.
But I pored over his financials--nothing.
If Vaughn sold surplus body parts
on the open market,
there should be some evidence of a profit.
The only explanation I could come up with
is that he sunk the money right back into his clinic.
How's that for noble?
Well, I stand corrected.
We don't need a financial motive
to hold Vaughn accountable for murder.
There's a clear chain of events
that led to Michael Jones' death.
They'll counter your causation argument
by citing the statistical risk of any surgery.
It's about consent.
Michael Jones wasn't aware of the risks.
Vaughn gambled with his life.
No pun intended,
but I think the doctor has another bone to pick.
Which is?
Vilifying the insurance companies.
Turning this trial into a referendum on the inequities
of the American medical system.
The haves and the have-nots.
Even the have-nots wouldn't want
what Vaughn was selling.
There are 46 million
uninsured people in this country.
In a jury pool, that's one in six.
Well, then you better make Dr. Vaughn seem like
a worse choice than no doctor at all.
(Jason) Dr. Vaughn never told me I might get cancer.
(McCoy) What did Dr. Vaughn tell you?
He just said he'd fix my knee.
Where did he tell you the new bone came from?
He didn't.
He never told me nothin'.
How did you feel when you learned
you'd contracted cancer?
Scared, I guess.
Angry.
I just sorta thought Dr. Vaughn was more on top of it,
you know.
I started chemotherapy last week,
and hopefully that'll do the trick.
I just want to live my life
without having this hanging over my head.
Nothing further.
Would you have gotten your tibial-plateau fracture repaired
without Dr. Vaughn?
No.
My mom couldn't afford it otherwise.
Because you and your mother don't have any health insurance?
That's right.
So, Dr. Vaughn treated you
for next to nothing?
Basically.
Without that, would you be playing basketball
for Georgetown next fall?
No.
If he wouldn't have fixed my knee,
they never would have given me a scholarship.
Recruiters had to see I still had my game.
It means a lot for you to play,
doesn't it?
Just about everything.
Jason, I want you to think about this.
If Dr. Vaughn had explained
that under very rare circumstances,
an undiagnosed cancer can transfer itself
through the donor bone,
would you have said no to the surgery?
Probably not.
You'd still have the operation?
If it would have fixed my knee, I would.
Do you blame Dr. Vaughn for your cancer?
I know he didn't mean for it to happen to me.
I actually feel bad he's in trouble, you know?
Okay.
Nothing further.
Seaver scored points today.
I'm worried we've lost our leverage to deal.
Don't be. I'm not offering one.
Jack, Jason Carter basically said
he'd be willing to endure chemotherapy
for a college scholarship.
Risk versus reward. Understandable.
It doesn't change the circumstances
of Michael Jones' death.
Well, maybe not, but informed consent
is beginning to sound irrelevant.
Especially after Vaughn makes his pitch to the jury--
What?
What date do you have for Michael's surgery?
Um...
"April 28th."
This is odd.
This medication log shows the dispensary gave Michael
his first anti-rejection drugs on the 23rd.
Days before the transplant.
Could be a clerical mistake.
The same nurse signed the daily charts--
Valerie Miller.
She signed the medication log too.
It might be worth asking Nurse Miller
for a clarification.
It gets hectic at the clinic.
I'm sure I wasn't paying attention
when I wrote it down.
So when did Michael Jones have his surgery?
The 28th, like it says.
I checked with the dispensary.
Their records show that they issued the medication
on the 23rd.
Patients don't start taking this kind of drug
before they receive a transplant.
Miss Miller, did he have his surgery on the 23rd,
and not the 28th?
I just did what I was told.
Don't put me in the middle of this.
It looks like you already are.
Dr. Vaughn asked me to change the dates in the file
after he heard Michael Jones had died.
Why did he do that?
Karen Kendall was still on life support on the 23rd.
She wasn't the real donor.
(McCoy) Who was the real donor?
A woman named Tina Sadowski.
(McCoy) People's 22.
This is Tina Sadowski's death certificate.
When did she die?
April 22nd.
The day before Michael Jones had his surgery.
What's the cause of death noted?
I'm so sorry, Dr. Vaughn. I didn't want to do this.
They told me they were gonna take my nursing license
if I didn't testify. Your Honor?
The jury will disregard the witness's comment.
You're out of order, Miss Miller.
Answer the question.
What's the cause of death noted
on Tina Sadowski's death certificate?
Ovarian cancer.
Nothing further.
Your Honor,
we have no questions for this witness.
I was notified by the hospital
that they had an uninsured patient
who'd shattered both femurs.
They intended to amputate his legs.
I knew I could help him.
And did you?
Absolutely. After his recovery,
Michael Jones was able to walk again.
And why did he die, Dr. Vaughn?
It's a painful fact, but there are risks in medicine.
If you give a million patients penicillin,
a small but predictable number will always die
of anaphylaxis.
But who questions the benefit of antibiotics?
What did you use to fix his legs?
I used two six-inch pieces of human bone
that I harvested from a donor.
I took them without consent.
Why did you do that?
Because we have a system in this country
that favors the wealthy and insured.
They expect that if they need blood,
tissue, or even an organ, it'll be there for them.
Truth be told, it usually is,
because they can pay.
How many of those people do you think
become donors themselves?
I'll tell you, it's less than 10%.
I took an oath to care for my patients.
I had to do everything I could to help them.
How's that square with harvesting bones
from a woman who died of ovarian cancer?
To the non-medical eye,
I agree it looks reckless.
That's why I stupidly tried to cover it up.
It wasn't reckless?
It's extremely rare for ovarian cancer
to metastasize to bone tissue.
(Seaver) How rare?
(Vaughn) Put it this way.
Michael Jones had a greater chance
of getting struck by lightning,
or even dying in a plane crash,
than developing ovarian cancer from that donor's bones.
(Seaver) And what were his odds of walking again
without your help?
Zero.
It's a noble argument, Doctor,
but it glosses over the reality of the crime,
don't you think?
You stole human remains from unwilling donors, correct?
(Vaughn) Perhaps they were unwilling.
There's no question they were needed.
(McCoy) You had no way to determine their suitability, correct?
The medical histories of the donors
were never vetted.
The parts you procured were never screened for disease.
Isn't that right?
I made the best evaluation I could.
I believe I chose good candidates.
So confident, you even sold the parts that you didn't use
to other tissue banks for a profit, correct?
The money was only to keep my clinic running.
You confidently chose good candidates,
like Tina Sadowski--
a woman who died of ovarian cancer.
As I said, the risk of transferring the disease
was extremely rare.
Except in this case, you were wrong.
Michael Jones died.
Jason Carter now has cancer as well.
And I tremendously regret that.
(McCoy) You knew with any illegal donor you were getting a loaded gun.
Correct?
My patients wouldn't have gotten
the treatment I provided anywhere else.
So in other words, you didn't think
you were risking much?
I'm saying I weighed the risks against helping people
who desperately needed it.
But you never told your patients what those risks were.
They never had a choice. Isn't that right?
Do you think Michael Jones would have chosen
to lose his legs?
In a perfect world, Mr. McCoy, I might be guilty.
But I practice medicine in the real world.
Where you're also bound by laws.
Which support a medical system that does not operate
in the best interests of people in need.
It's dictated by money.
Or more often, in the case of my patients, a lack of it.
Except that the system is not on trial here.
You are, because you gambled with a young man's life,
and lost.
What would you have me tell someone like Michael Jones?
Too bad?
As a doctor who swore an oath to help my patients,
that's not acceptable.
He depended on me to save his legs, so I did.
You saved his legs. You lost the patient.
And given the odds, I'd do it again.
Which is why, Dr. Vaughn,
your cure is worse than any disease.
Objection!
Sustained.
Nothing further.
Has the jury reached a verdict?
We have, Your Honor.
(Judge Harvey) On the count of Murder in the Second Degree,
how do you find?
We find the defendant, Adam Vaughn, Not Guilty.
Take comfort in the fact that he's losing his license
to practice.
I'm not sure people like Jason Carter
feel that way.
Jack, you were right on the law.
Does that mean that Dr. Vaughn was wrong?