Ex-Maine official targeted in brain-harvesting probe

PORTLAND – Maine’s former funeral inspector, who has been linked to a brain harvesting operation in the state morgue, is a target of a federal criminal probe, according to a report published Thursday.

Matthew Cyr, who collected brains for a research institute in Maryland, has been named as a defendant in civil lawsuits by more than a dozen people. Lawyers involved in the case say that Cyr, who now works as a police officer in Bucksport, is also facing the possibility of criminal charges.

More than a dozen families that filed civil suits have alleged that the brains of their loved ones were removed without their consent. Cyr and the founder of the Stanley Medical Research Institute in Bethesda, Md., Dr. E. Fuller Torrey, have denied any wrongdoing.

Criminal investigators are looking into whether the families of more than 100 people who died in Maine agreed to have their relatives’ brains sent to the Stanley Institute between 1998 and 2003.

Several affected families have alleged in pending lawsuits that they consented to donate only a sample of brain tissue or that they gave no permission at all.

Christopher Taintor, a Portland lawyer who represents Cyr in the families’ lawsuits, said in a Jan. 25 e-mail to 16 other lawyers involved in the cases that his client was the target of a federal probe.

Tom Marjerison, a Portland lawyer who represents Cyr in the criminal investigation, confirmed that Cyr has been told he’s a target of the probe.

The Stanley Institute opened a brain bank to benefit research on mental illnesses such as bipolar disorder 12 years ago. Hundreds of brains from state and county morgues in Maine, California, Minnesota and Washington state were sent to the Maryland lab.