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Former employee used hospital lab to grow psychedelic mushrooms
Healthcare Security Weekly, November 30, 2004
Police arrested a man last week for allegedly growing thousands of hallucinogenic mushrooms while working at the University of Rochester (NY) Medical Center lab, WROC-TV reported.
Gregory Liptak, 26, made over $2,000 a week selling the mushrooms to people living in the area, police said.
Authorities noticed a problem when residents began acting strange. "Road deputies were having problems on the road, handling complaints, and rolling up on people who had ingested mushrooms and had a violent out of control behavior," Lt. Robert Hetzke with Wayne County Sheriff's Department told WROC-TV. Five people went to the hospital suffering from overdoses.
After an investigation, police discovered that Liptak had allegedly set up a lab in his home and grew mushrooms for more than two years.
Liptak worked as a lab technician at the University of Rochester Medical Center. Hospital security reported to WROC-TV that Liptak allegedly taped open a fire exit door, and reentered the lab during the night to use an autoclave to sterilize the rice the mushrooms grew in. As a result, the hospital added a new security system to alert staff when doors are left opened, locked, or disabled.
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