PORTLAND (AP) – At least 14 patients at three Maine hospitals may have received bone grafts from tissue that was never screened for infectious diseases such as HIV and hepatitis, WCSH-TV reported Friday.

The tissue was supplied by New Jersey-based Biomedical Tissue Services, which faces a 122-count criminal indictment for allegedly harvesting and selling stolen body parts.

Some of that bone and tissue was believed to have been used to manufacture bone grafts that were used at the three Maine hospitals.

Six patients undergoing back, neck or joint surgery received the illegal tissue at St. Mary’s Medical Center in Lewiston. Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston had five and Maine Medical Center in Portland had three, WCSH said.

One of the recipients, Rhonda Ames of Benton, said she will be screened for infectious diseases for the next year and that tests thus far have come back negative. But she expressed outrage that bone filler used to repair her back may have been made from stolen body parts.

“I was angry at the people that did this, that took the bones, not only for myself but for the corpses, the people that were violated even though they were dead,” Ames said.

The hospitals received the tissue from a supplier in Florida, which reportedly sterilized it, reducing the risk of infection.

Patients who received tissue transplants or bone grafts at any hospital in Maine in 2004 or 2005 were advised to contact their doctor or the hospital where the procedure was done.

The Food and Drug Administration closed Biomedical Tissue Services last month, saying it had evidence that the company failed to screen for contaminated tissue.

While maintaining that the risk was minimal, the agency cautioned that patients that received the company’s products could have been exposed to disease.

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