MODERN-DAR GRAVE ROBBERY: Mastromarino allegedly stole body parts from 1,077 corpses over a five-year period. -- PHOTO: AP

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Mastromarino's biography reads like an all-American success story: College athlete, published author, family man and multi-millionaire.

But prosecutors were yesterday expected to begin painting a much darker picture of a New Jersey grave-robber who illegally took body parts from more than 1,000 corpses, including that of veteran BBC broadcaster Alistair Cooke.

And as if that was not bad enough, the co-author of Smile: How Dental Implants Can Transform Your Life, is also accused of exposing 10,000 transplant recipients to the risk of hepatitis, Aids and other infectious diseases.

Mastromarino, 44, was charged in 2006 with harvesting organs, body parts and tissues from the bodies of people who had never consented to be donors.

Along with three other defendants, he allegedly made millions of dollars selling the unscreened body tissues for use in transplants.

His gang is said to have run a modern-day version of the macabre Victorian trade of grave-robbing. But instead of digging up cemeteries at midnight, it cut deals with funeral parlours which supplied the corpses.

In a further gruesome twist to the case, the gang would replace removed bones with PVC piping or even broomsticks to avoid arousing suspicion at the victims' funerals, reported the Scotsman newspaper, quoting a source familiar with the operation.

During the original indictment, the prosecutors said the gang would also toss gloves, aprons and other incriminating evidence into the bodies before sewing them back up.

'What happened here...is like something out of a cheap horror movie,' said Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes.

'But for the thousands of relatives of the deceased whose body parts were used for profit and the recipients of the suspect parts, this was no bad movie. This was for real.'

The gang is also accused of forging death certificates and donor consent forms to create the appearance that the tissue was harvested legally.

And to circumvent transplant guidelines which set age limits and health requirements for donors, the defendants falsified the records.

In the case of Mr Cooke, 95, who died of lung cancer in New York in 2004, the stolen body parts were listed as coming from a healthy 85-year-old who had died of heart failure.

Mastromarino, who ran his company selling human tissue for medical implants out of New Jersey, was described by Smile co-author John Pipolo as 'a wonderful family man'.

But, in what with hindsight seemed like an ominous hint of things to come, he also said Mastromarino was prepared to 'do surgeries other doctors wouldn't dare attempt'.

While building up a successful dental business with practices in New Jersey and midtown Manhattan, Mastromarino had also shown other troubling signs.

Several malpractice suits were brought against him.

In 2000, he was arrested for being under the influence of drugs, and gave up his licence for six months to enter rehabilitation.

He was later suspended for four years for practising without a licence, but by then had already begun a second business trading in body parts.

And it was that business, Biomedical Tissue Services, which landed him in the trouble that he is in now.

In 2006 he, along with Brooklyn embalmer Joseph Nicelli and two other men who worked for him, was accused of harvesting the bones and organs from 1,077 corpses over a five-year period. All four pleaded not guilty.

However, his 'lead cutter' last month admitted dissecting 244 corpses and helping to forge papers. Nurse Lee Cruceta, 35, is expected to testify against Mastromarino.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, ASSOCIATED PRESS

ECHOES OF FRANKENSTEIN

'What happened here ...is like something out of a cheap horror movie.'

BROOKLYN DISTRICT ATTORNEY Charles Hynes