COLUMBUS, Ohio – A former lab assistant faces up to 20 years in federal prison for stealing human bones used in teaching at Ohio University’s medical college and selling them on the internet.
Weston Henri Moquin, 28, pleaded guilty Tuesday to moving stolen remains across state lines and stealing property from a federally funded agency. He agreed to pay nearly $85,000 in restitution.
Prosecutors say Moquin, an Athens resident, took skulls, loose bones, autopsy saws and other items between July 2011 and June 2012 and mainly sold them online to companies in California and Oregon and a medical student in Utah.
Defense attorney Keith Yeazel says Moquin used various drugs and sold the bones to support his drug habit. He says Moquin is in a drug-treatment program in California and will return there until his sentencing date is scheduled.
According to court documents, Moquin stole loose human bones, skulls, skeletons, plastinated human remains, autopsy saws and other materials while he worked at Ohio University’s Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine between July 2011 and June 2012.
He then sold the items primarily through his eBay account to The Bone Room, a California store dealing in human and animal bones; an individual in Oregon doing business as “Frozen Critters,” which claims on its website to sell bones to medical schools, and a “researcher and medical student in Utah,” the court documents said.
Prosecutors said Moquin received a total of $84,683.85 for the items.
Moquin could serve up to 10 years in prison on each count.