Arthur Rathburn will find out next week if he’s going to prison for up to 20 years.
As a Detroit cadaver dealer, he’s accused of deliberately buying diseased human bodies with HIV and Hepatitis and selling them to doctors and dentists who thought they were clean.
Prosecutors told jurors in closing arguments, Rathburn bought diseased remains “no one else wanted that he flipped for money.”
The defense told the jury this is not a criminal case but a contractual civil case and they were urged not to decide this on emotion.
Prosecutors said Rathburn’s shabby warehouse on the east side was “filthy, nasty and disgusting.”
During the three week trial jurors were shown pictures similar to ones obtained by the 7 Investigators from sources that showed body parts in beer coolers and a picture of the cutting room where bodies were dismembered.
Prosecutors told jurors that bodies were stockpiled, frozen together, mixed with food, mixed with dead animals, along with pools of blood and piles of insects.
Rathburn is charged with Wire Fraud, False Statements to Investigators and Transportation of Hazardous Materials, 20 years in prison if convicted. He turned down a plea deal before trial that would have been 5 years in prison.
The defense told the jury Rathburn ran a legitimate, lawful and necessary business and he did not have to testify in his own defense. The defense also cautioned jurors not to base their verdict on emotion and on a mental picture of a filthy warehouse with Rathburn wearing a white lab coat spattered in blood using a chain saw to hack up people.
Jurors will begin deliberations on Monday.
