J-S42009-15

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA, IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF

PENNSYLVANIA

Appellee

v.

GERALD GARZONE,

Appellant No. 2141 EDA 2014

Appeal from the PCRA Order June 20, 2014

In the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County

Criminal Division at No(s): CP-51-CR-0012746-2007

BEFORE: SHOGAN, MUNDY, and FITZGERALD,*JJ.

MEMORANDUM BY SHOGAN, J.: FILED AUGUST 27, 2015

Appellant, Gerald Garzone, appeals from the June 20, 2014 order 

denying his petition filed pursuant to the Post Conviction Relief Act (“PCRA”), 

42 Pa.C.S. §§ 9541–9546. After careful review, we affirm.

We previously summarized the facts of the crime in our disposition of 

Appellant’s direct appeal, as follows:

Appellants Louis and Gerald Garzone,2[brothers,] were 

licensed funeral home directors who operated separate funeral 

homes in Philadelphia. Appellants were also co-owners of 

Liberty Crematorium in Philadelphia with co-defendant James 

McCafferty. In early 2004, Appellants and Mr. McCafferty were 

approached by codefendant Michael Mastromarino,3the founder 

and president of a business called Biomedical Tissue Services 

(“BTS”) that sold human tissue harvested from cadavers to 

tissue banks. Mr. Mastromarino had initially partnered with 

____________________________________________

*

 Former Justice specially assigned to the Superior Court.
J-S42009-15

- 2 -

funeral home directors in New York and New Jersey. These 

funeral home directors provided Mr. Mastromarino with cadavers

from which he and his team of “cutters” could harvest tissue 

without the consent of the deceased or their next of kin and then 

sell to tissue banks. However, this arrangement required Mr. 

Mastromarino and his cutters to reconstruct the cadavers with 

PVC pipe after harvesting to conceal their activity and prepare 

the bodies for viewing and burial. Therefore, Mr. Mastromarino 

approached Appellants and Mr. McCafferty, who as owners of a 

crematorium, had access to cadavers destined for cremation and 

could provide these cadavers without concern for their postharvesting condition.

2

 Louis Garzone filed an appeal to this Court, which 

is docketed at 780 EDA 2009. We have addressed 

Louis Garzone’s appeal in a separate decision.

3 Michael Mastromarino filed an appeal to this Court, 

which is docketed at 3443 EDA 2008. We have 

addressed Mr. Mastromarino’s appeal in a separate 

decision.

Appellants and McCafferty agreed to provide bodies that 

had been entrusted to their funeral homes and crematorium for 

cremation to Mr. Mastromarino, who would then harvest bones 

and tissue from the cadavers to sell to tissue banks. In 

exchange, Mr. Mastromarino agreed to pay Appellants $1,000 for 

each cadaver. When Mr. Mastromarino and his cutters came to 

Philadelphia, Appellants would direct them to the bodies in the 

embalming rooms of their funeral homes. There, Mr. 

Mastromarino and the cutters would remove the cadavers’ arms, 

legs, bones, ligaments, tendons, and skin, often leaving only a 

head and a bloody torso behind in a bag for cremation.

Between visits from Mr. Mastromarino and his cutters, 

cadavers destined for harvesting would sit in an alley, 

unrefrigerated, for days. Appellants never provided Mr. 

Mastromarino or his cutters with death certificates, identification, 

consent forms, or the names of the bodies’ next of kin. Although 

Mr. Mastromarino told Appellants that the tissue was destined for 

medical use and the cadavers had to be of individuals who were 

less than seventy-five years old and disease-free when they 

died, Appellants provided cadavers of individuals who were more 

than eighty years old and sick with cancer, H.I.V., and hepatitis 
J-S42009-15

- 3 -

at the time of their passing. Over the course of their 

arrangement with Mr. Mastromarino, Appellants provided more 

than 244 cadavers and received more than $245,000 in return.

In September 2005, Mr. Mastromarino learned that the 

FDA was investigating his activities and instructed Appellants to 

burn their funeral homes to the ground to destroy the evidence 

of their enterprises. Instead, Appellants incinerated their 

records in the crematory oven mere days before the arrival of 

FDA investigators, and told the investigators that their records 

had been destroyed by a flood.

In addition to providing bodies to Mr. Mastromarino, 

Appellants pursued other criminal activity. Appellants defrauded 

the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare (“PDPW”) by 

filing false forms seeking reimbursement for providing funeral 

services to the indigent when they actually already had been 

compensated for those services by their clients. For each false 

claim, Gerald and Louis sought the maximum amount of $750 

and overall received $51,750 and $25,250, respectively. 

Trial Court Opinion, 6/1/09, at 2–4.

Commonwealth v. Garzone, 993 A.2d 306, 308–309 (Pa. Super. 2010) 

(internal citations to the record omitted). 

The Commonwealth submitted this case to the Grand Jury in May of 

2006. The Grand Jury recommended that multiple charges be filed against

Appellant, and he was arrested. Trial was scheduled, various of the other 

co-defendants pled guilty and cooperated with the Commonwealth, and the 

Commonwealth prepared its numerous witnesses for trial with an estimated 

trial length of three months. Id. at 309. In connection with his participation 

in the illegal harvesting and sale of human body parts, as well as filing the 

false forms seeking reimbursement from the government for providing 

funeral services for which he had already been paid, Appellant ultimately 
J-S42009-15

- 4 -

entered a guilty plea to corrupt organizations, criminal conspiracy, 244 

counts of theft by unlawful taking (for theft of body parts), abuse of corpse, 

recklessly endangering another person (“REAP”), and fraudulently obtaining 

food stamps or other public assistance. On October 22, 2009, the trial court 

sentenced Appellant to an aggregate sentence of eight to twenty years in 

prison. N.T., 10/22/08, at 275–276. The trial court awarded the agreedupon aggregate amount of restitution, which was $144,000.00. Id. at 276. 

The Commonwealth requested the costs of prosecution because, while 

Appellant ultimately pled guilty, it had to prepare for trial; the trial court 

declined to order those costs. Id. at 273.

The Commonwealth filed a timely post-sentence motion, following 

which the trial court directed Appellant to pay $90,028.00, representing the 

salaries of the assistant district attorneys and county detectives as well as 

the grand jury costs. On appeal, Appellant argued, inter alia, that the trial 

court did not have the authority to order him to pay the expenses associated 

with the district attorneys’ salaries, the county detectives’ salaries, or the 

grand jury costs. This Court vacated Appellant’s judgment of sentence 

relating to the costs for the assistant district attorneys’ and county 

detectives’ salaries but affirmed in all other respects. Garzone, 993 A.2d at 

307–308.

Upon a grant of Appellant’s petition for allowance of appeal addressing 

the specific question of whether a trial court may order a convicted offender 
J-S42009-15

- 5 -

to pay costs to the Commonwealth representing salaries for hours worked by 

assistant district attorneys and county detectives pursuant to 16 P.S. § 

7708, our Supreme Court affirmed this Court. Commonwealth v. 

Garzone, 34 A.3d 67, 68 (Pa. 2012). The Court stated that “although our 

reasoning does not track that of the panel below, we are in agreement with 

its central holding that . . . the crimes in this case are particularly heinous, 

[and] if the General Assembly intended to permit such recovery of regularly 

paid salaries of assistant district attorneys and detectives to be costs 

associated with the prosecution, the Legislature would have expressly done 

so.” Id. at 80.

Appellant filed a timely pro se PCRA petition on August 10, 2012. 

Counsel was appointed, and he filed an amended petition on September 30, 

2013, raising several claims of ineffective assistance of counsel. On March 

6, 2014, the PCRA court held a hearing1and issued a Pa.R.Crim.P. 907 

notice of its intent to dismiss the petition. Appellant filed a response on April 

21, 2014, and on June 20, 2014, the PCRA court dismissed Appellant’s PCRA 

petition. Appellant filed a timely notice of appeal on July 15, 2014. Both the 

trial court and Appellant complied with Pa.R.A.P. 1925.

Appellant presents the following two questions for our review:

____________________________________________

1

 There are two identical transcripts in the record from this hearing, one 

labeled Hearing Volume I and the other labeled Motion Volume I. Our 

references to this hearing will be to Hearing Volume I.
J-S42009-15

- 6 -

1) Where trial counsel knew or should have known that much 

of the hysteria created at sentencing was based on wrong 

scientific evidence, especially after a decision in federal 

Multi-District Litigation amply demonstrated that fact, was 

Counsel ineffective for failing to file a motion to reconsider 

sentence?

2) Where Appellant was prejudiced by pleading guilty to one 

count of recklessly endangering another person, pursuant 

to 18 Pa.C.S. §2705, as the plea was not knowing, 

intelligent and voluntary, was Counsel ineffective for 

advising Appellant to plead guilty to that count?

Appellant’s Substituted Brief at 3.

When reviewing the propriety of an order denying PCRA relief, this

Court is limited to determining whether the evidence of record supports the 

conclusions of the PCRA court and whether the ruling is free of legal error. 

Commonwealth v. Rykard, 55 A.3d 1177, 1183 (Pa. Super. 2012). We 

grant great deference to the PCRA court’s findings that are supported in the 

record and will not disturb them unless they have no support in the certified 

record. Commonwealth v. Rigg, 84 A.3d 1080, 1084 (Pa. Super. 2014).

In order to obtain collateral relief, a PCRA petitioner must establish by 

a preponderance of the evidence that his conviction or sentence resulted 

from one or more of the circumstances enumerated in 42 Pa.C.S. § 

9543(a)(2). Instantly, Appellant asserted in his PCRA petition the existence 

of ineffective assistance of counsel pursuant to 42 Pa.C.S. § 9543(a)(2)(ii). 

To plead and prove ineffective assistance of counsel, a petitioner must 

establish: (1) that the underlying issue has arguable merit; (2) counsel’s 

actions lacked an objective reasonable basis; and (3) actual prejudice 
J-S42009-15

- 7 -

resulted from counsel’s act or failure to act. Rykard, 55 A.3d 1177, 1189–

1190 (Pa. Super. 2012). A claim of ineffectiveness will be denied if the 

petitioner’s evidence fails to meet any one of these prongs. 

Commonwealth v. Martin, 5 A.3d 177, 183 (Pa. 2010); Commonwealth 

v. Barnett, ___ A.3d ___, 2015 PA Super 162 (Pa. Super., filed July 29, 

2015). “We do not employ a hindsight analysis in comparing trial counsel’s 

actions with other efforts he may have taken.” Commonwealth v. Stultz, 

114 A.3d 865, 881 (Pa. Super. 2015). Moreover, counsel is presumed to 

have rendered effective assistance. Commonwealth v. Montalvo, 114 

A.3d 401, 410 (Pa. 2015). We have explained that trial counsel cannot be 

deemed ineffective for failing to pursue a meritless claim. Commonwealth 

v. Loner, 836 A.2d 125, 132 (Pa. Super. 2003) (en banc).

Appellant’s ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claims are based upon 

Multi-District Litigation (“MDL”), a civil proceeding in the federal district 

court in New Jersey. That case consolidated all of the claims by Appellant’s 

victims, who were recipients of the stolen bone tissue, as well as relatives of 

the deceased donors, against all of the tissue-distribution companies that 

purchased tissue samples from BTS. Summary judgment in that case, In 

re: Human Tissue Products Liability Litigation, 582 F.Supp.2d 644 

(D.N.J 2008), was granted on October 22, 2008, the day Appellant was 

sentenced in the instant case. Appellant contends herein that the federal 

decision proves that the diseased parts he stole posed no risk to the 
J-S42009-15

- 8 -

recipients and demonstrated that the fears of the tissue recipients that they 

could contract disease from the tissues were irrational and not grounded in 

science. Appellant avers that plea counsel knew or should have known of 

the federal decision and was ineffective for failing to file a motion for 

reconsideration of sentence and in failing to advise Appellant to seek to 

withdraw his guilty plea to REAP.

While acknowledging that the MDL opinion was not binding authority, 

Appellant’s Brief at 19, 24, Appellant suggests the scientific evidence 

presented in the federal case “would have debunked the hysteria that 

surrounded the sentencing.” Id. at 19. Appellant asserts that counsel’s 

action prevented the court from having “accurate information at sentencing.” 

Id. at 27. Appellant maintains that without the scientific evidence presented 

in the federal litigation, Appellant could not “have possibly received a fair 

sentence.” Id. at 21. The Commonwealth pointedly responds that Appellant 

faced maximum penalties of up to 1,822 years in prison, the Commonwealth 

had argued for a sentence of thirty-five to seventy years of imprisonment, 

and the court imposed a sentence of eight to twenty years of incarceration. 

N.T. Hearing Vol. I, 3/6/14, at 8; Commonwealth Brief at 11. 

Comparatively, co-defendant Michael Mastromarino received a sentence of 

twenty-five to fifty years in prison. N.T. Hearing Vol. I, 3/6/14, at 10.

Regarding this issue, the PCRA court stated as follows:

First, defendant’s claim that the MDL decision provided 

“answers” to scientific issues at issue at sentencing in the case 
J-S42009-15

- 9 -

at bar has no basis in the law. Decisions by federal courts 

inferior to the United States Supreme Court are not binding upon 

Pennsylvania courts. Commonwealth v. Clark, 710 A.2d 31, 39 

(Pa. 1998); Commonwealth v. Fahy, 737 A.2d 214, 221 (Pa. 

1999) (“It is axiomatic that decisions of our federal brethren are 

not binding on this court.”). While federal judicial decisions may 

be looked to for guidance on interpretation of federal law, federal 

opinions are not facts, but are analysis of facts as it applies in a 

particular case. Clark, 710 A.2d at 39; Commonwealth v. Watts, 

23 A.3d 980, 987 (Pa. 2011). Accordingly, Judge Martini’s 

decision on a summary judgment motion pending in federal civil 

litigation was not evidence relevant to the sentencing decision of 

this Court.

Moreover, contrary to defendant’s claim, the MDL decision 

did not resolve, even in the federal litigation, the issue of the 

risk to victims who received the diseased tissue stolen by 

defendant. The specific question before the federal court on the 

summary judgment motion was “whether Plaintiffs’ experts have 

reliably concluded that the diseases at issue can be transmitted 

beyond thirty days and that the incubation periods for HBV, HCV, 

and HIV are beyond six months.”2 Id. at 655. The district court 

concluded:

2 HBV, HCV, and HIV stand for Hepatitis B 

Virus, Hepatitis C Virus, and Human 

Immunodeficiency Virus, respectively.

(1) Unprocessed bone tissue and bone paste stored 

at room temperature for thirty (30) days or more is 

not capable of transmitting HBV, HCV, HIV, syphilis, 

or cancer;

(2) Unprocessed bone tissue and bone paste is not 

capable of transmitting prion disease;

(3) Federal plaintiffs who have tested negative for 

HBV, HCV, HIV, and syphilis more than six (6) 

months after their bone tissue or bone paste 

transplant surgery cannot establish general 

causation with respect to HBV, HCV, HIV, and 

syphilis.
J-S42009-15

- 10 -

Id. at 692. The court further specifically stated that it was not 

deciding any further issues, and did not grant complete 

summary judgment to the civil suit defendants. Id. Accordingly, 

the MDL decision did not address the risk to the tissue recipients 

who received materials stored for less than 30 days, the risk to 

the tissue recipients of contracting one of the specified diseases 

through tissue other than bone or bone paste, or any of the 

other numerous medical risks to patients from receiving diseased 

and inferior tissue unrelated to the specific diseases addressed in 

the summary judgment motion.

In addition, and perhaps most importantly, the arguments 

that were presented to Judge Martini were presented to, and 

considered by, the sentencing court in determining defendant’s 

sentence. In particular, the sentencing memorandum filed on 

behalf of co-defendant Louis Garzone forcefully argued that the 

“indisputable scientific consensus exists that defendant’s deeds 

did not affect the health or safety of any person,” based upon 

the arguments advanced by the civil defendants in the MDL 

litigation. See Louis Garzone’s Sentencing Memorandum at pp. 

10-11. Counsel even attached as an exhibit to his sentencing 

memorandum, for the review and consideration of this Court, the 

44 page memorandum from the defense in the MDL case setting 

forth the basis for Judge Martini’s decision.

Finally, the Court can state unequivocally that the 

presentation of the MDL decision would not, in any manner, have 

caused the Court to give defendant a more lenient sentence. 

The aggregate sentence imposed by the Court took into account 

every bit of mitigating evidence presented by the Garzones, 

including the scientific evidence from the MDL litigation, and 

was, under the remarkable circumstances of this case, a 

generous sentence for defendant.

Accordingly, the record establishes that the MDL decision 

did not give rise to new information that would bear upon the 

Court’s sentencing decision. For that reason, it is clear that no 

prejudice resulted from counsel’s failure to file a motion for 

reconsideration of sentence based on the MDL decision. 

Therefore, the Court properly found that counsel’s failure to file a 

motion for reconsideration did not deprive defendant of effective 

assistance of counsel.

PCRA Court Opinion, 10/3/14, at 6–8.
J-S42009-15

- 11 -

While Appellant refers to the MDL decision as scientific evidence, we 

agree with the Commonwealth and the PCRA court that the decision is not 

evidence; rather, it is a non-binding legal conclusion “rendered by a judge in 

a different jurisdiction” in civil litigation. Commonwealth’s Brief at 13 (citing 

PCRA Court Opinion, 10/3/14, at 8). Moreover, Appellant cannot establish 

prejudice in this matter. Appellant is seeking resentencing. The PCRA court 

clearly stated that it had the information presented in the federal litigation 

because counsel for Louis Garzone appended it to his sentencing brief, the 

studies were compelling, and they were the reason the lower court imposed 

the lenient sentence it did instead of “the 35 to 70 years that was asked for 

by the Commonwealth.” N.T. Hearing Vol. I, 3/6/14, at 10. The PCRA court 

advised that the forgone post-sentence motion “wouldn’t have mattered,” 

because Appellant “made out so well, he should be kissing the ground every 

day . . . and thanking [plea counsel] for extricating him from a case with an 

eight to 20 year sentence for which he’s very fortunate he’s not spending 

another 20 years in prison for.” Id. at 11.

[T]o satisfy the prejudice prong, it must be demonstrated that, 

absent counsel’s conduct, there is a reasonable probability that 

the outcome of the proceedings would have been different. 

Commonwealth v. Charleston, 94 A.3d 1012, 1019 (Pa. 

Super. 2014). If it has not been demonstrated that counsel’s act 

or omission adversely affected the outcome of the proceedings, 

the claim may be dismissed on that basis alone, and the court 

need not first decide whether the first and second prongs have 

been met.
J-S42009-15

- 12 -

Commonwealth v. Perez, 103 A.3d 344, 348 (Pa. Super. 2014). Even if 

plea counsel had filed the post-sentence motion, Appellant would not have 

received a lesser sentence. Thus, he has not established that but for the 

alleged error of counsel, there is a reasonable probability that the outcome 

of the proceeding would have been different.

Appellant next argues that the guilty plea to REAP was not knowing, 

intelligent, and voluntary, and plea counsel rendered ineffective assistance 

for advising Appellant to plead guilty to that count.2 We rely on the PCRA 

court’s reasoning, as follows:

Defendant next claims that trial counsel was ineffective, as 

he “should have sought to withdraw the plea as to the REAP 

count because the sentence was based on inaccurate information 

and/or because the MDL opinion was newly discovered evidence 

which Counsel should have presented to the Court .... Counsel 

should have sought to withdraw a plea to the REAP count based 

on this newly discovered evidence.” Statement of Errors at ¶ 2.

[T]he MDL decision was not evidence of any kind, but rather a 

legal conclusion rendered by [a] judge in a different jurisdiction 

in civil litigation. Accordingly, any motion premised upon the 

MDL decision as “newly discovered evidence” would have been 

frivolous. . . .

Moreover, the legal conclusions set forth in the MDL 

decision, even if considered to be “evidence,” would not 

undermine defendant’s guilty plea to REAP. To be guilty of 

REAP, a person must “recklessly engage in conduct which places 

or may place another person in danger of death or serious bodily 

injury.” 18 Pa.C.S. § 2705. As stated above, the MDL decision 

explicitly limited its ruling to the risk of specific communicable 

____________________________________________

2

 Significantly, there was no further penalty imposed on the REAP charge. 

N.T. Sentencing, 10/22/08, at 275–276.
J-S42009-15

- 13 -

diseases transmitted to recipients who received bone or bone 

paste tissue stored at room temperature for more than 30 days. 

It did not purport to address other risks to patients from 

receiving the diseased and substandard tissue, including the 

risks of contracting the specified diseases through tissue other 

than bone or bone paste, or any risks at all to patients who 

received tissues stored for less than 30 days. Defendant 

admitted to harvesting aged and diseased tissues that he caused 

to be transmitted to unknowing medical providers who used that 

tissue to treat unknowing patients. Nothing in the MDL decision 

undermined the compelling evidence that this conduct provided 

grave risks to tissue recipients.

* * *

Defendant’s Statement of Errors does not specify the 

advice that he received from trial counsel that is alleged to be 

flawed. Assuming that the flawed advice was that he was guilty 

of REAP notwithstanding the MDL decision, then his argument 

should be rejected for the reasons set forth in section III(B), 

above. As stated there, the MDL decision in no way undermined 

defendant’s guilt of REAP. To the extent that defendant’s claim 

is premised upon some other unspecified flawed advice, the 

Court is unable to address the claim due to lack of specificity. 

See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Cannon, 954 A.2d 1222, 1228 (Pa. 

Super. 2008), app. denied, 964 A.2d 893 (Pa. 2009) (where a 

defendant makes a vague and generalized objection on appeal 

that leaves the trial court to guess at his claims, those claims are 

deemed to have been waived).

PCRA Court Opinion, 10/3/14, at 8–10.

In his appellate brief, Appellant focuses on his state of mind, 

suggesting that the PCRA court failed to address his claim that he lacked the 

necessary mens rea for REAP because “there was not an actual present 

ability to inflict harm nor was there any evidence that actual physical harm 

had ever been inflicted upon anyone.” Appellant’s Brief at 28. Thus, 

Appellant contends that counsel should have either counseled Appellant not 
J-S42009-15

- 14 -

to plead guilty to REAP or sought to withdraw the plea to REAP. Id. As the 

Commonwealth poses, that precise claim was not advanced in Appellant’s 

Pa.R.A.P. 1925(b) statement and therefore is waived. Commonwealth v. 

Riggle, ___ A.3d ___, 2015 PA Super 147 (Pa. Super., filed July 7, 2015).

Even if not waived, the issue lacks merit. The guilty plea colloquy 

revealed that Appellant knew the harvested tissue was to be sold for 

transplantation into people and that the cadavers were required to be 

individuals under seventy-five years old who did not have certain diseases. 

Despite this knowledge, Appellant provided bodies of people in their “late 

80s” who “were riddled with cancer and infected with . . . HIV and hepatitis”; 

he did not disclose the identities of the bodies; and the bodies he provided 

“were not fresh,” as was required for safe transplantation. N.T. Guilty Plea, 

9/2/08, at 27–32. Appellant acknowledged under oath that the substance of 

the factual summary was true and stated that he was pleading guilty 

because he was guilty. Id. at 42.

Appellant now relies upon a statement from Lee Cruceta, a coconspirator, that the “processing performed by RTI and others made it 

impossible to transmit disease from transplanted bone.” Appellant’s Brief at 

30. In pertinent part, the statement upon which Appellant relies, attached 

to his amended PCRA petition, is as follows:

[Question:] While you were at the Philadelphia Funeral homes 

did you ever have any conversations about where tissue would 

go when you left?
J-S42009-15

- 15 -

[Answer:] Yes. I had a conversation with [Appellant] where he 

asked where the tissue would go and I told him it would be used 

for transplantation. It would be sent to a processing [company] 

to be sterilized, processed and used in various orthopedic 

procedures.

[Question:] Did you have any other conversations regarding 

changes that had or would occur in the harvesting procedures of 

tissue at the Philadelphia Funeral Homes?

[Answer:] Yes, I had a conversation with [Appellant] about how 

when we first started we would harvest certain tissues (“long 

bones”] and use small incissions. Now we were skin, spines and 

more tissue. He felt if [co-defendant] Michael [Mastromarino] 

was making more money then He ([Appellant]) should be getting 

more money. He was talking to me to have me tell Michael 

about it.

Amended PCRA petition, 9/30/13, at Exhibit B, pp. 2–3; Appellant’s Brief at 

30.

This statement, which was available to Appellant when he pled guilty, 

does not negate the facts read into evidence during the plea colloquy, nor 

does it show that Appellant believed the tissue was safe. Rather, it confirms 

that Appellant knew it was being used for transplantation, and that his coconspirators had begun harvesting skin, spines, and tissues other than 

bones. We conclude the issue lacks arguable merit.

Order affirmed.

Justice Fitzgerald did not participate in the consideration or decision of 

this case.
J-S42009-15

- 16 -

Judgment Entered.

Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.

Prothonotary

Date: 8/27/2015