A Wisconsin pharmacist accused of ruining 570 doses of the COVID vaccine because he thought the injections would cause a DNA mutation will plead guilty, prosecutors said on Tuesday.
Steven Brandenburg, 46, removed vials of the Modern vaccine from a refrigerator on Christmas Eve and again on Christmas Day to destroy the doses, prosecutors say.
The 57 bottles – enough to inoculate 570 people – were being stored at Advocate Aurora Health in Grafton, a suburb of Milwaukee, where Brandenburg worked.
Prosecutors announced new charges against Brandenburg on Tuesday as part of a court settlement. Brandenburg, who has yet to plead guilty, faces up to 10 years in prison.
Prosecutors said Bradenburg is an admitted conspiracy theorist who believed the vaccine would cause a mutation in the recipients’ DNA.
Bradenburg’s wife filed for divorce on December 30, saying he had a rental deposit full of dry food and weapons because he believed the pandemic was part of a government plan to close the world.
Pharmacist Steven Brandenburg is accused of intentionally spoiling hundreds of doses of the coronavirus vaccine. He is depicted in a reserve photo by the Ozaukee County Sheriff’s Office
Brandenburg claimed that his actions were a ‘spontaneous act’ and he ‘was not thinking straight due to ongoing personal issues and lack of sleep’
Prosecutors say Brandenburg took a box of Modern vaccines out of a refrigerator at Advocate Aurora Health in Grafton (above) on December 24 for three hours and for nine hours the next day to make them ineffective. The medical center had to discard the compromised doses
Brandenburg told a detective that he took the bottles out of the medical center refrigerator for three hours on Christmas Eve and then put them back.
Then, on Christmas Day, he took the vials out of the refrigerator again and left them out for nine hours, believing that it would render the doses ineffective if not refrigerated for 12 hours.
But he said a pharmacy technician found the bottles and put them back in the refrigerator.
The Modern vaccine should be stored between 36 and 46 degrees Fahrenheit.
Moderna says the vaccine can remain viable at room temperature for 24 hours, according to the complaint.
Aurora Medical Group director Jeff Bahr said that on discovering that Brandenburg had deliberately removed the vials, health professionals were forced to throw away about 570 doses.
Brandenburg said his actions were a ‘spontaneous act’ and he ‘was not thinking straight due to ongoing personal issues and lack of sleep.’
Brandenburg is said to have told researchers that he was aware “that the people who received the vaccines would think they were vaccinated against the virus when in fact they were not.”
Medical experts say there is no truth to claims that the COVID-19 vaccines genetically modify humans.
According to the complaint, Brandenburg confessed to his employers at Aurora in an email that he intentionally removed the Modern vaccine box twice.
Divorce documents reveal that Brandenburg’s wife was concerned about her husband’s actions and behavior at the time and told a judge she believed her children were in imminent danger, according to WISN.
She labeled him an ‘admitted conspiracy theorist’ in her divorce application on December 30, the day after discovering that her husband was being investigated for trying to sabotage vaccines.
In the process, she said her husband has rental units that include ‘bulk food and stored weapons’.
On one occasion, he left a water purifier, a large bucket of powdered milk and two buckets of three-day emergency food at his home.
He told her that the world was ‘collapsing’ and he thought that ‘the government is planning cyber attacks and plans to turn off the power grid’.
Brandenburg was fired from Aurora Health after the incident and his license was suspended by a state council last week.
The Department of Safety and Professional Services, which handles the Brandenburg pharmacy license, said it had no previous complaints or incidents with him.
Brandenburg photographed at a probable cause hearing at the Ozaukee County Justice Center via video from the Ozaukee County Jail in Port Washington, Wisconsin, on January 4, after his arrest
Brandenburg is accused of two counts of attempting to tamper with consumer products, which is described in the plea agreement as demonstrating ‘reckless disregard for the risk of another person being put in danger of death or personal injury’.
Brandenburg faces a maximum sentence of 10 years and a $ 250,000 fine on each charge.
He had originally been accused of attempting a misdemeanor against property damage, but prosecutors warned that more serious charges could occur if tests showed that the doses were damaged.
Adam Gerol, district attorney for Ozaukee County, said in a statement that “it was necessary to bring an appropriate level of prosecution and punishment into this case” in federal court and “the facts of this incident simply did not fit into an indictment provided by Wisconsin law. . ‘
The authorities declined to comment in addition to a press release announcing the charges.
A sentencing hearing has not been scheduled.