A pharmacist in Wisconsin was arrested in December 2020 for tampering with more than 500 doses of the Moderna vaccine and on Tuesday was sentenced to 36 months in prison.
Steven Brandenburg had been fired from his position at Aurora Medical Center in Grafton, Wisconsin, after admitting he had intentionally removed the vials of vaccine from refrigeration, causing them to spoil, officials reported.
Brandenburg had told hospital officials, according to Reuters, that leaving the vaccines out had originally been an inadvertent error, before admitting to doing it intentionally a few days later.
He had been arrested in December on felony charges of recklessly endangering safety, adulterating a prescription drug, and criminal damage to property, a police report said.
Brandenburg pleaded guilty in January on two counts of attempting to tamper with consumer products with reckless disregard, according to NBCDFW. His sentence will last three years in prison and three additional years of supervised release.
NBC News reported the maximum sentence for the charges could have been 10 years in prison.
Nearly 60 of the 500 spoiled doses were administered before becoming aware they had been tampered with, according to Reuters.
Dr. Jeff Bahr, Aurora Health Care Medical Group president, told Reuters, Moderna Inc. assured the hospital no harm could be done to someone who receives a spoiled version of the vaccine, but it does not protect the recipient from COVID infection. Those who received the ineffective doses were notified and advised to be re-vaccinated.
The plea agreement Brandenburg had signed indicated he believes in various conspiracy theories and “notions of ‘alternative history,’ and has communicated these same beliefs to his co-workers at the Grafton Facility for at least the past two years,” Fox6 reported. His conspiracy beliefs included the idea that the vaccine was microchipped and made recipients infertile.
Vials of the vaccine Brandenburg had removed from storage are still being tested by Moderna Inc. to determine whether they are still effective or not, according to Fox6.
Brandenburg allegedly pleaded not guilty in his initial Ozaukee County court case prior to the federal case. Fox6 also reported that as part of the Ozaukee County case, Brandenburg had turned over eight firearms, and family members told prosecutors he had more stored elsewhere.
And while Aurora Health and local law enforcement reported no conclusive motive, police said he “knew the spoiled vaccinations would be useless and that people who received the vaccinations would think they had been vaccinated against the virus when in fact they were not.”
Newsweek reached out to Aurora Medical Center for comment.
