Harvard to pay $53 million to settle lawsuits over theft of body parts

Lodge, who ​had worked in Harvard’s morgue for almost three decades, was sentenced by a federal ⁠judge in December to eight years in prison for stealing and selling organs and other parts ​of cadavers that were donated to the school for medical research and education.

A state court judge in Boston on Tuesday preliminarily approved a class action settlement, that would resolve lawsuits filed against the institution following the arrest ​in 2023 of Cedric Lodge, the former manager of Harvard Medical School's morgue.

Harvard University has agreed to pay $53 million to resolve lawsuits by families alleging it ​mishandled the bodies of loved ones donated to its medical school and whose parts ‌were then sold on the black market by the former manager of its morgue.