PORTLAND (AP) – A man whose complaint prompted the state to begin an investigation into an alleged brain harvesting operation in Maine has filed a lawsuit against the Maryland research lab at the center of the controversy.

Jim Allen’s lawsuit, filed Monday in Cumberland County Superior Court, alleges his late wife’s entire brain was taken without approval. His is the third lawsuit to allege wrongdoing at the state medical examiner’s office between 1999 and 2003.

Allen did not plan to sue last October, but his thinking changed.

“The more it weighed on my mind, I just decided to do something about it legally,” Allen said.

His case centers on what was said during an Aug. 3, 2001, phone conversation with a former state funeral inspector who collected brains for research of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder at the Stanley Medical Research Institute.

Allen acknowledges that he agreed to make a tissue donation, but says he understood it was only a small sample. In the lawsuit, he says he was assured the procedure would require only a small incision.

Two previous lawsuits over brain harvesting at the medical examiner’s office in Augusta have included similar allegations.

A Gorham woman who said she limited consent to a small tissue sample settled her case out of court for $52,500. A second, in which the plaintiff alleges she turned down the telephone request, is pending in Waldo County Superior Court.

Byrne Decker, a Portland lawyer who represents the Stanley Institute and its founder Dr. E. Fuller Torrey, said his clients acted appropriately and in good faith in Allen’s case.

Allen said he takes satisfaction that his complaint helped prompt the state’s investigation of what happened inside the medical examiner’s office. But Allen said he remains affected by the aftermath of his wife’s death.

“It doesn’t go away,” Allen said. “Every time I go to the cemetery . . . I think about it. You can’t not.”

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Information from: Portland Press Herald, https://www.pressherald.com

AP-ES-03-15-05 0904EST