Chem-Bio

Charges Filed

Criminal charges against Chem-Bio were the last step in the long road of litigation. In 1991, Geary, Smith, and their families filed civil charges for medical malpractice against Chem-Bio, Family Health Plan, and other defendants. Each family settled out of court: the Gearys for $3.5 million and the Smiths for $6.3 million. Only after the 1993 death of Geary, a 40-year-old mother of three, and the 1995 death of Smith, a 29-year-old accountant, did the Milwaukee County District Attorney consider criminal charges against Chem-Bio.

At an inquest hearing in April 1995, experts testified that the disputed slides showed clear evidence of cervical cancer. The six-person jury recommended pressing reckless homicide charges against the company and, separately, against Lipo and Fricano. Chem-Bio pled no-contest in December 1995. The state appeals court refused to hear Chembio's request for dismissal on the grounds that a corporation could not be charged with homicide. In February 1996, Judge Hansher exacted the harshest financial penalty allowed by statute: $10,000 per victim. Hansher characterized the penalty as “absolutely inadequate.”

Milwaukee County District Attorney E. Michael McCann boasted that he had been officially censured by the Medical Society of the State of Illinois. Lipo and Fricano avoided prosecution by negotiating agreements with McCann. Lipo promised that he would not supervise tissue testing or act as a lab medical director for six years. By 1997, he was teaching in the Department of Pathology at the Medical College of Wisconsin. Fricano, who had already found employment at another lab, promised to take additional training and to refuse any position that involved payment by the slide.

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