Owner of Twin Cities tattoo parlor admits to trafficking in body parts
The longtime owner of a tattoo parlor in White Bear Lake has admitted to his role in the buying and selling of stolen human remains.
Matt Lampi, 52, of East Bethel, agreed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Pennsylvania to plead guilty to interstate transport of stolen goods in connection with his participation in a nationwide network that prosecutors say bought and sold body parts from Harvard Medical School and an Arkansas mortuary.
Lampi, owner of Get to the Point Tattoo parlor, remains out of custody ahead of sentencing, which has yet to be scheduled.
His attorney, Joseph D'Andrea, said Thursday that his client "has been living a model life while he's been out."
The charges against Lampi did not explain his interest in the body parts. Messages were left Thursday with Lampi seeking comment about his agreement to plead guilty and what led him to traffic in human remains. Lampi's attorney said, "[I] don't want to get into that" aspect of the case.
From 2018 through 2022, Cedric Lodge, morgue manager for Harvard Medical School's anatomical gifts program, stole organs and other body parts of cadavers donated for medical research and education, according to the indictment. Lodge and his wife, Denise Lodge, sold the remains, prosecutors say, sometimes allowing buyers into the morgue to examine cadavers.
Among the buyers was Pennsylvanian Jeremy Pauley, a self-described preservationist of "retired medical specimens and curator to historic remains." Pauley sold many of the remains he purchased, the indictment said; Lampi was identified as a buyer, also selling other items to Pauley, who pleaded guilty in September.
"Some crimes defy understanding," said Gerard Karam, U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, in a statement issued when the charges were filed in June. "The theft and trafficking of human remains strikes at the very essence of what makes us human."
Prosecutors say part of the scheme went like this:
The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock allowed people to gift their body after death for medical education, teaching and research. Candace Chapman Scott, a mortician in the mortuary, stole parts of cadavers she was supposed to have cremated. She sold and shipped some of these remains to Pauley, including bones, skulls, skin, whole stillborn babies, dissected faces and heads, and internal organs.
Pauley then resold some of the cadaver parts to others around the country, including Lampi, according to the indictment. The scheme lasted from at least 2018 until 2022.
In December 2021, Scott and Pauley negotiated a sale: "2 brains, one with skullcap, 3 hearts one cut, 2 fake boobies, one large belly button piece of skin, one arm, one huge piece of skin, and one lung." Pauley paid her $1,600 via PayPal, then told Lampi he had hearts and brains coming. Lampi agreed to buy three items for $4,000, according to the charges.
"Update on parts?" Lampi wrote on Facebook Messenger five days after they agreed to the December 2021 deal. Pauley wrote back: "Going to pack up your brain and heart tonight, arm isn't here yet but I'll send it out as soon as it arrives!"
A couple months later, the two agreed to a trade: Pauley would send Lampi a stolen stillborn baby in exchange for five human skulls. In total, the two exchanged more than $100,000 in online payments as they bought and sold from each other.
Lampi and Pauley are the only defendants who have agreed to plead guilty. Otherwise, resolutions of the cases against the other defendants remain pending.
Star Tribune staff writer Reid Forgrave contributed to this report.
