Harvard University has agreed to pay $53 million to settle civil lawsuits filed by families of body donors whose remains were stolen and sold on the black market by a former manager at Harvard Medical School's morgue. The proposed class-action settlement was presented before a Boston court on Monday and awaits judicial approval before funds are distributed to affected families.

Cedric Lodge, 58, who managed Harvard Medical School's Anatomical Gifts Program — the unit responsible for receiving and overseeing bodies donated for medical education and research — pleaded guilty to stealing human remains and selling them through an illicit scheme that ran from 2018 to 2021. Prosecutors alleged Lodge dismembered cadavers, removing heads, brains, skin, hands, and other body parts, which he then sold to buyers across several US states, including Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. In some cases, buyers were brought directly to the morgue to select remains. Lodge was sentenced in December 2024 to eight years in prison; his wife, who assisted in the sales, received a sentence of one year and one day. Six other co-conspirators, unconnected to Harvard, also pleaded guilty in 2025.

Under normal procedure, bodies donated to Harvard Medical School are used by students to study and practise medical procedures. Once the school has finished using them, cadavers are cremated — with remains returned to families — or buried in the university's medical cemetery. Civil lawsuits filed against Harvard in 2023 alleged the institution had failed to act on Lodge's misconduct for several years despite warning signs. Those suits were initially dismissed by a state court judge but were revived by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court last autumn, paving the way for Monday's settlement.

In a letter signed by George Daley, Harvard's dean of the faculty of medicine, and Bernard Chang, dean for medical education, the university described Lodge's actions as