A former hospital employee charged with spreading Hepatitis C in New Hampshire and seven other states will plead guilty on Wednesday to federal charges.
David Kwiatkowski, 34, will face as much as 40 years in prison for pleading guilty to 14 federal charges stemming from infecting at least 32 people with Hepatitis C at Exeter Hospital in New Hampshire,
ABC News reports.
He was arrested and indicted in July 2012 for stealing syringes filled with fentanyl, a powerful pain medication. Officials said Kwiatkowski injected himself and then reused the needles on patients.
The charges include tampering with a consumer product and illegally obtaining controlled substances, ABC reports.
A hearing is scheduled for the U.S. District Courthouse in Concord.
The plea agreement includes portions of an interview between Kwiatkowski and investigators on July 19, 2012, the day he was arrested. In the transcript, he says, "I'm going to kill a lot of people out of this," ABC reports.
Kwiatkowski also said that he swapped syringes inside Exeter Hospital approximately 50 times. He also admitted to diverting drugs inside other medical centers dating back to 2002.
Before arriving in New Hampshire, he worked as a traveling medical technician in more than a dozen hospitals, according to ABC.
Six patients at Hays Medical Center in Kansas have tested positive for matching strains of Hepatitis C, along with six patients from the Johns Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore, and one patient from the VA Medical Center, also in Baltimore.
In total, public health officials say that more than 11,000 people may have been exposed to the liver-destroying virus, ABC reports.