Accused vaccine saboteur charged with misdemeanor

A Grafton pharmacist, described as an “admitted conspiracy theorist” and accused of attempting to destroy 570 doses of Covid-19 vaccine, was charged Tuesday with a single misdemeanor, not the felonies authorities originally sought, because of confusion about whether he succeeded in ruining the vaccine.

Steven R. Brandenburg, 46, pleaded not guilty in Ozaukee County Circuit Court to attempted criminal damage to property, for which he could be sentenced to a maximum of six months in the county jail and fined $10,000.

Authorities had sought more serious charges of recklessly endangering safety and criminal damage to property, but support for those felony charges eroded as Aurora Medical Center in Grafton, where the vaccine was being stored and where Brandenburg worked at the time of the alleged sabotage last month, gave changing accounts of the incident.

The hospital, which initially reported the vaccine was inadvertently left unrefrigerated for 12 hours, just days later said it was an intentional act that rendered the vaccine useless and that it had disposed of the doses.But after Brandenburg was arrested, the hospital said it hadn’t disposed of the doses  and wasn’t sure the vaccine was ruined.

Then earlier this month, vaccine manufacturer Moderna Pharmaceuticals said it would have been rendered ineffective only if it was left at room temperature for more than 24 hours, sowing more doubt as to whether a felony had been committed.

The vaccine is being tested to determine if it is still viable, Ozaukee County District Attorney Adam Gerol said.

According to the criminal complaint filed on Tuesday, Brandenburg twice removed 57 vials of the vaccine from an Aurora Medical Center refrigerator, hoping to destroy them because he believed they would harm people.

Brandenburg at first told hospital security officials during a two-hour interview on Dec. 29 that he took the vials from the refrigerator and left them out by accident. But he confessed in a Dec. 30  email to intentionally removing the vials of vaccine on Dec. 24 and Dec. 25, the complaint states.

“I did so with the purpose of allowing the vaccine to be outside the temperature range so that it would not be effective,” the complaint quotes him as saying in the email.

Brandenburg later made the same admission to police, saying he did so “because everything he has researched had led him to believe that the vaccine was unsafe for people and altered their DNA.”

He said he removed some of the vials on Dec. 24 and left them unrefrigerated for three hours and then put them back.

On Dec. 25, he removed the vials again and left them outside the refrigerator for nine hours.

Brandenburg said it was a “spontaneous act and that he wasn’t thinking straight due to ongoing personal matters and lack of sleep,” according to the criminal complaint.

A pharmacy technician eventually discovered the vials had been removed from the refrigerator, returned them and then reported the incident to a supervisor, the complaint states.

Brandenburg was subsequently fired from his job at Aurora Medical Center, for which he was paid $127,000 a year, according to documents filed in a divorce case.

According to filings in that case, Brandenburg believes the world may soon end and is being divorced by his wife of eight years because of his beliefs, the wife’s lawyer told Court Commissioner Barry Boline in that case.

He has “vastly different views of parenting and views of the world” from those of his wife, her attorney told Boline, according to a transcript of a hearing in July. “My understanding is that (Brandenburg) is more aligned with conspiracy theories.”

In court on Tuesday, Gerol told Judge Paul Malloy that federal authorities are investigating the case.

Gerol added that charges filed by his office against Brandenburg could be amended if testing of the vials show that it had been rendered ineffective.

The fair market value of the doses was estimated to be more than $8,000, according to the complaint.

Meanwhile, Brandenburg’s pharmacist license was suspended last week by the state Pharmacy Examining Review Board, pending the outcome of the criminal charges and disciplinary hearings.

The Review Board said it has “not made a determination” as to whether or not Brandenburg “violated any statutes or rules related to his practice as a pharmacist and that Brandenburg voluntarily agreed to the license suspension to focus on the criminal case against him.”

Brandenburg is free on a $10,000 signature bond. As a condition of his release, he was ordered by Ozaukee County Circuit Judge Paul Malloy to surrender all firearms to the Ozaukee County Sheriff’s Office and have no contact with Aurora or any of its employees.

He is next due in court on March 18.