Twin Cities tattoo parlor owner admits trafficking body parts

The longtime owner of a tattoo parlor in White Bear Lake has admitted his role in the buying and selling of stolen human remains.

Matt Lampi, 52, of East Bethel pleaded guilty Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Pennsylvania 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 Tattoos 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 did not explain Lampi’s interest in the body parts. Messages were left Thursday with Lampi seeking comment about his plea agreement and what led him to traffic in human remains. His attorney said, “[I] don’t want to get into that” aspect of the case.

From 2018 through 2022, Cedric Lodge of Goffstown, N.H., 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 Jeremy Pauley of Bloomsburg, Pa., a self-described preservationist of “retired medical specimens and curator to historic remains.” According to the indictment, Pauley sold many of the remains he purchased; Lampi was identified as a buyer. He also reportedly sold other items to Pauley, who pleaded guilty in September.

“Some crimes defy understanding,” Gerard Karam, U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, said in a statement when the charges were filed in June. “The theft and trafficking of human remains strikes at the very essence of what makes us human.”

According to prosecutors and the charges:

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 at the mortuary, stole parts of cadavers she was supposed to have cremated, but she sold and shipped some of the remains to Pauley. The body parts included bones, skulls, skin, stillborn babies, dissected faces and heads, and internal organs.

Pauley then resold some of the cadaver parts to others around the country, including Lampi. 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 body parts for $4,000.

“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, they 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.