Those Wacky Heterosexuals

Het morgue tech, 25, guilty of sex with 92-year-old corpse

Sunday, June 15th, 2008

New Jersey’s The Star-Ledger reports that a young heterosexual laboratory technician accused of sexually abusing the corpse of a 92-year-old woman in a Teaneck hospital morgue has pleaded guilty to desecration of human remains.

Anthony Merino, 25, of Manhattan faces up to seven years in prison when he is sentenced for the second-degree crime next month. Under a complicated plea agreement negotiated by his attorney, Savyon Grant, and the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office, Merino could file a motion to have his sentence reconsidered and be placed on five years’ probation after serving 11 months, 15 days in prison.

Merino was arrested after a security guard observed him engaging in sexual activity with the deceased woman inside a morgue at Holy Name Hospital in Teaneck. Merino was a newly employed part-time lab tech at the hospital at the time.

As part of his plea, Merino agreed to undergo a full psychological evaluation and will be prohibited from working at a hospital, morgue, cemetery or anywhere else where he could come into contact with human remains.