Man guilty of selling body parts

May 15, 12:38 PMLA Headlines ExaminerTad Cronn

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Jurors convicted Ernest Nelson, 51, on Thursday of cutting up donated cadavers at UCLA and selling the body parts to medical research firms in a $1.5 million scam.

Ernest Nelson awaits the verdict. (AP)

Nelson, of Rancho Cucamonga, was found guilty of eight counts, including grand theft and tax evasion. He could get 12 years in prison and be required to pay restitution.

According to prosecutors, Nelson and Henry Reid, the former director of UCLA's Willed Body Program, came up with the scam in 1999. Nelson, whose business involved transporting body parts to hospitals, has said he thought the sales were authorized by the university.

Prosecutors said Nelson would buy the donated bodies, cut them up and keep them in a warehouse until they were bought by companies that didn't know how they had been obtained.

Nelson paid Reid a total of $43,000 in cashier's checks in 1999, prosecutors said. Other payments were made in cash.