ROCHESTER - A former funeral director in suburban Rochester was convicted Friday of removing body parts without permission from 17 corpses.

Jason Gano, 32, was the first of seven people to stand trial here on charges of illegally dissecting skin, bone and other parts from three dozen bodies being prepared for cremation at three Rochester-area funeral homes in 2005.

During a monthlong trial, the defense argued that an unscrupulous biomedical company in New Jersey run by Michael Mastromarino sent Gano forged documents indicating relatives had given their consent. But prosecutors countered that Gano systematically allowed Mastromarino's employees to loot bodies without permission.

After two days of deliberations, a jury found Gano guilty of illegal-harvesting charges relating to 17 of 23 corpses from which body parts were turned over to Fort Lee, N.J.-based Biomedical Tissue Services. He could draw up to 10 years to 20 years in prison at sentencing on Jan. 16.

Biomedical Tissue Services operated its only satellite office in the Rochester suburb of Brighton and paid funeral homes a standard fee of about $1,000 to lawfully harvest body parts from a donor corpse.

Relatives of 23 people whose bodies were harvested from January to August 2005 testified that they either didn't give permission or gave limited consent for donations to Gano, who worked at Thomas E. Burger Funeral Home in the suburb of Hilton.

The jury convicted him of 17 counts each of opening graves and body stealing, both felonies, and unlawful dissection, a misdemeanor, as well as one count of scheming to defraud. He was acquitted of six counts each of opening graves, body stealing and unlawful dissection.

Investigators allege that four of Mastromarino's employees here removed bone and tissue without proper consent from 36 corpses in 2005, including 11 bodies at Profetta Funeral Chapel in the suburb of Webster and two bodies at Serenity Hills Funeral Chapel in Rochester.

The scandal emerged in February 2006 when Mastromarino and others were accused of cutting up corpses from funeral homes in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The bodies included that of "Masterpiece Theatre" host Alistair Cooke.

The sometimes-diseased parts were sold and used in about 10,000 surgical procedures performed by unsuspecting doctors in the United States and Canada.

Mastromarino is serving 18 to 54 years for running the scam in New York and a concurrent sentence of 25 to 58 years after pleading guilty to hundreds of charges in Philadelphia last month.