Investigators: “Conspiracy theorist” pharmacist believed vaccines were unsafe

(WKOW) — The man accused of potentially spoiling hundreds of doses of coronavirus vaccine faced an Ozaukee County Judge Monday.

While police arrested Steven Brandenburg of Grafton last week for the vaccine sabotage, they had not formally identified him until Monday when he appeared via Zoom for his initial appearance.

Court documents labeled him an “admitted conspiracy theorist.”

Brandenburg faces charges of criminal damage to property and reckless endangerment of safety.

However, Ozaukee County District Attorney Adam Gerol said that they were rethinking the felony level criminal damage to property.

Despite initial reports that the vials were destroyed, Gerol said that hospital officials have kept the doses for evidence.

He says they need Moderna to test the vials and make sure the vaccines are, in fact, useless.

Otherwise the charges would not be as steep.

“He gave a statement that he removed these vials from refrigeration, had done so on two occasions and his intent on doing so was to render them inert because he formed this belief that they were unsafe, that the RNA method of creating these medications rendered them unsafe,” Gerol said.

Court documents show that Brandenburg falsely believed the vaccines would hurt people by changing their DNA.

Ever since Aurora Medical Center announced the damage was intentional, officials there said there were no errors in their security policy, that it was a bad actor with ill-intent.

Madison area hospitals say they take vaccine security very seriously.

For example SSM Health says their vaccines are stored in secure freezers with limited access.

Those freezers are under constant surveillance.

At UnityPoint Health-Meriter, a spokesperson says they are “Confident in both the process and people working at all levels of our Covid-19 response.”

Law enforcement officials said in court Monday the same could not be said of Brandenburg.

“I know that some of his coworkers at Aurora, only one of whom’s name I have, represented reports that he had brought a firearm into work on two prior occasions,” Gerol said. “I know that they are concerned about him.”

Area hospital officials did not say if this situation changed any of their vaccine security strategies.

Brandenburg is being held on a $10,000 signature bond, and is expected back in court on January 19th.

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