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Former UPMC Employee To Take Plea Deal After Patients Infected

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) – A hospital technician, accused of infecting patients with Hepatitis C -- in multiple states -- is due in court tomorrow.

He's expected to take a plea deal in his case.

David Kwiatkowski has been in jail since August of last year.

He's accused of stealing drugs – and in the process, infecting at least 30 patients in a New Hampshire hospital with Hepatitis C.

"He was working for a kind of temp agency that would send people from place to place, so he worked in many different hospitals," said Stephen Morse at Columbia University. "Maybe half a dozen different places."

One of his stops was at UPMC Presbyterian Hospital, where he worked for 47 days in 2008.

UPMC fired him after he was found in an area he wasn't supposed to be in. Officials say they found syringes in his pockets. He was accused of taking a syringe with a painkiller from an operating room and sticking it down his pants.

UPMC reported his positive drug test for Fentanyl and other drugs in his system to his employer and fired him.

UPMC says it did not call police because they did not see him committing a criminal act.

Officials also say Kwiatkowski then went to work at Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia, using UPMC as a reference and no one checked the reference.

He was arrested in New Hampshire. He worked in eight states all told and co-workers were the ones who reported his bizarre behavior to the FBI.

"Observed him sweating, observed him red-faced, bloodshot and according to one witness, unfit to provide medical care," said U.S. Attorney John Kacavas.

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