- A Wisconsin pharmacist who destroyed 57 vials of COVID-19 vaccine believed the virus was a hoax, court documents reveal.
- Steven Brandenburg told colleagues that the Earth was flat and the sky was a government shield to keep people from seeing God, one of his colleagues told police.
- Brandenburg also told officers he was a conspiracy theorist, unsealed FBI documents show.
- Visit the Business Insider homepage for more stories.
A Wisconsin pharmacist who intentionally sabotaged 57 vials of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine told a colleague that the Earth is flat and the sky is a “shield put up by the government to keep individuals from seeing God,” said court documents.
Steven Brandenburg, who was a pharmacist at Aurora Medical Center in Grafton, Wisconsin, was arrested on Dec. 31 after an investigation by his employer found that he had deliberately removed vials of the Moderna vaccine from a clinical refrigerator where he worked. He pleaded guilty on January 26.
The unsealed FBI filing for a search warrant filed Jan. 13 and first reported by The Daily Beast showed that Brandenburg does not believe the virus is real.
Brandenburg, 46, had previously said in his workplace that he thought the vaccine would hurt people, implant them with microchips and cause infertility.
Federal authorities found that Brandenburg’s conspiracy theories don’t just stop with the vaccine.
“Brandenburg was deeply involved in conspiracy theories,” Sarah Sticker, who worked as a technician at the Aurora Medical Center pharmacy alongside Brandenburg, told police. Sticker was the one who found the uncooled doses of the Moderna vaccine around 3am on December 26.
Other theories Brandenburg told Sticker involved the Earth being flat, Judgment Day approaching, and the sky being “a shield put up by the government to keep people from seeing God,” court judges show. documents.
In an interview with law enforcement officials reported in court documents, Brandenburg said he had “been interested in conspiracy theories for the past seven years” and read many conspiracy theory books.
On December 30, Brandenburg admitted in an email to the researchers at Advocate Aurora Health that he deliberately removed the bottles from the refrigerator.
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“I did this with the goal of getting the vaccine out of the temperature range so that it wouldn’t be effective,” he said, adding that the vaccine would be “harmful to those who get it” and “the recipient’s DNA. could change. “
Brandenburg, who no longer works in the hospital, was charged with a class A felony in a January 19 hearing and could be sentenced to nine months in prison, a fine of $ 10,000, or both, according to court documents. .
He must appear in court again on February 9.