- A Wisconsin pharmacist who destroyed 57 vials of the COVID-19 vaccine believed the virus to be a scam, court documents reveal.
- Steven Brandenburg told colleagues that the Earth was flat and that the sky was a shield from the government to prevent humans from seeing God, one of his co-workers told authorities.
- Brandenburg also told police officers that he was a conspiracy theorist, the FBI’s unsealed documents show.
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A Wisconsin pharmacist who deliberately sabotaged 57 vials of the Modern COVID-19 vaccine told a colleague that the Earth is flat and that the sky is a “shield placed by the government to prevent individuals from seeing God,” according to court documents.
Steven Brandenburg, who was a pharmacist at Aurora Medical Center in Grafton, Wisconsin, was arrested on December 31 after an investigation by his employer found that he intentionally removed vials of the Modern vaccine from a refrigerator at the clinic where he worked. He pleaded guilty on 26 January.
The FBI’s unsealed search warrant application filed on January 13, first reported by The Daily Beast, showed that Brandenburg does not believe the virus is real.
Brandenburg, 46, had previously said at his workplace that he thought the vaccine would hurt people, implant microchips and cause infertility.
Federal officials have found that Brandenburg’s conspiracy theories don’t stop at just the vaccine.
“Brandenburg was very involved in conspiracy theories,” said Sarah Sticker, who worked alongside Brandenburg at the Aurora Medical Center pharmacy as a technician, to the police. Sticker was the one who found the uncooled doses of Moderna vaccine at around 3 am on December 26.
Other theories that Brandenburg told Sticker were about the Earth being flat, that Judgment Day was coming and that heaven was a “shield placed by the government to prevent individuals from seeing God”, show the court records.
In an interview with police officers registered in court documents, Brandenburg said he had “an interest in conspiracy theories over the past seven years” and read many conspiracy theory books.
On December 30, Brandenburg admitted in an email to Advocate Aurora Health investigators that he intentionally removed the bottles from the refrigerator.
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“I did this in order to allow the vaccine to stay out of the temperature range so that it would not be effective,” he said, adding that the vaccine “would be harmful to individuals who receive it” and could “alter the recipient’s DNA. “
Brandenburg, who no longer works at the hospital, was charged with Class A misdemeanor during a hearing on January 19 and could face up to nine months in prison, fined $ 10,000 or face both punishments, according to court documents. .
He is due to return to court on February 9.