He pleaded guilty to arguably one of the most widely publicized cases of product tampering in recent memory.
You may recall a case out of the Aurora Medical Center in the Milwaukee suburb of Grafton, Wisconsin where last Christmas a pharmacist purposely ruined over 500 doses of the newly minted vaccine against COVID-19 because he bought in to the conspiracy theories surrounding its development (like tracking devices being implanted in people via the vaccine, etc.).
46-year-old Steven Brandenburg plead guilty to two felony counts of attempted product tampering back in February shortly after he was caught. Brandenburg removed the 500 Moderna doses from a refrigerator on Christmas Eve and left them out long enough to spoil.
Now the former pharmacist has been sentenced to three years behind bars in a federal prison for his crimes.
Brandenburg will also be on federal probation for three years after his stint in the big house. Prosecutors were gunning for 51 months in the pen.
Brandenburg attempted to throw himself on the mercy of the court saying in part, "I am desperately sorry and ashamed for what i did to these people."
"The Department of Justice is committed to working with its federal, state, and local partners to hold individuals who seek to tamper with these vaccines fully accountable. Today's sentence was the direct result of that shared commitment and the underlying hard work and collaborative efforts of all involved in the investigation and prosecution of Mr. Brandenburg," said the Acting U.S. Attorney.