David Kwiatkowski, a hospital technician accused of inflicting a multi-state outbreak of Hepatitis C will plead guilty on his final case proceeding. This is according to the plea filed on Monday in the New Hampshire federal court. He will have to face an imprisonment of 30 to 40 years as a result.
The petition states that it would allow Kwiatkowski to shun criminal charges in the states -- Georgia, Kansas and Maryland -- where officials say the traveling cardiac technologist injected himself with painkillers then placed the saline back in the contaminated needles.
As a result of Kwiatkowski's acts, a number of patients in the said states were infected. The authorities have recorded one infected patient with hepatitis C genetically associated to Kwiatkowski's strain who had died. The infection played a "contributing role" in its death.
The details of the interview Kwiatkowski had with the investigators of New Hampshire just after his arrest were also included in his filed plea. He admitted he was aware that he’d been sick since 2010 but continued to “swap out” syringes of Fentanyl, the painkiller he uses.
In the agreement, Kwiatkowski also clarified that he was the only one doing these things – diverting of drugs at Exeter Hospital in New Hampshire – then added that he knew he could threaten the lives of many people out of this.
According to the agreement signed on July 18 by Kwiatkowski and his lawyers, Kwiatkowski affirmed that he inflicted Hepatitis C to patients of John Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore, the VA Medical Center in Baltimore, and Hays Medical Center in Kansas.
Kwiatkowski will plead guilty to obtaining controlled substances by fraud of up to to seven counts of tampering with a consumer product. The final proceeding is scheduled on Wednesday.
David Kwiatkowski grew up in Michigan and worked as a "traveler" sent by agencies to hospitals around the country, frequently for temporary jobs. In federal drug charges last year, U.S. Attorney John Kacavas branded him a "serial infector."
