Radiology Technician Sentenced to 30 Years for Product Tampering

JACKSONVILLE, FL—U.S. District Judge Marcia Morales Howard yesterday sentenced Steven Beumel (49, Jacksonville) to 30 years in federal prison for one count of tampering with a consumer product resulting in death, four counts of tampering with a consumer product resulting in serious bodily injury, and five counts of stealing Fentanyl by deception.

Beumel pleaded guilty to the charges on May 11, 2012.

According to court documents, Beumel was a radiology technician at Memorial Hospital from May 1992 through October 2004. He worked as a radiology technician at Mayo Clinic from October 2004 through August 2010. Beumel admitted that he stole syringes of Fentanyl during patients’ procedures and replaced them with syringes of saline contaminated with hepatitis C. Beumel’s tampering occurred from 2006 through 2008 at the Mayo Clinic’s Interventional Radiology Unit.

Epidemiologists from Mayo Clinic, the Florida Department of Health, and the CDC worked for more than three years to solve the hepatitis C outbreak at the Mayo Clinic. It was eventually linked to Beumel. Mayo Clinic immediately fired Beumel and reported his actions to law enforcement. The clinic tested thousands of patients who were potentially put at risk by Beumel’s actions. Two patients from that testing effort were linked to Beumel.

This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Food and Drug Administration, the Florida Department of Financial Services, and the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office Homicide Unit. It was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Frank Talbot.