SCRANTON – The United States Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania announced that Chief Judge Matthew W. Brann sentenced Angelo Pereyra, age 39, of Wichita, Kansas, to 18 months in prison for interstate transport of stolen human remains and body parts.
According to United States Attorney Gerard M. Karam, Pereyra previously pleaded guilty to a Criminal Information, admitting that between 2018 and 2022, Pereyra stole human remains and body parts from a Kansas hospital where he was employed as a pathology assistant and sold them. Pereyra stole organs and portions of organs, including human hearts, brains, spleen, testicle, intestine, and livers, amputated feet and toes, and other parts. Some of the specimens he stole came from deceased individuals, others from living patients. Most egregiously, Pereyra stole the corpses of miscarried and stillborn fetuses before they could be properly buried. Pereyra sold the stolen specimens to Andrew Ensanian, of Montgomery, Pennsylvania, and shipped them to him from Kansas to Pennsylvania via U.S. Postal Service. Ensanian previously entered a guilty plea to the same Information, and is awaiting sentencing.
These charges resulted from a multi-year investigation into the nationwide trafficking of stolen human remains. Multiple defendants have been charged previously in the Middle District of Pennsylvania, and five have thus far entered guilty pleas. An additional defendant has been charged and convicted in Arkansas.
The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United States Postal Inspection Service. Assistant U.S. Attorney Sean A. Camoni is prosecuting the case.