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Doctors in 5 states charged with prescribing opioids
For cash and sex.
American enterprise profit motive at work. Why worry, they’re only low-class addicts using opioids.
Jeez, we might have to change the stereotype drug dealer from some shady character to one who wears a stethoscope in all the ads. And business suits. Walter White has competition.
[link=https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/doctors-in-five-states-charged-with-prescribing-pain-killers-for-cash-sex/2019/04/17/7670d20e-607e-11e9-9ff2-abc984dc9eec_story.html]https://www.washingtonpos…bc984dc9eec_story.html[/link]
Dozens of medical professionals in five states were charged Wednesday with participating in the illegal prescribing of more than 32 million pain pills, including doctors who prosecutors said traded sex for prescriptions and a dentist who unnecessarily pulled teeth from patients to justify giving them opioids.
The 60 people indicted include 31 doctors, seven pharmacists, eight nurse practitioners and seven other licensed medical professionals. The charges involve more than 350,000 illegal prescriptions written in Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee, Alabama and West Virginia, according to indictments unsealed in federal court in Cincinnati.
The charges include unlawful distribution or dispensing of controlled substances by a medical professional and health-care fraud. Each count carries a maximum 20-year prison sentence, and many of the defendants face multiple counts. At least one doctor is charged in connection with a death caused by the opioids, officials said.
The indictments are part of a broader effort by the Justice Department to combat the nations opioid epidemic, which claimed the lives of 47,600 people in 2017 alone, the latest year that federal overdose data is available.
John Oliver with the help of some friends, Bryan Cranston & Michael Keaton did some justice to the enablers of the opioid crisis who include the Sackler family.
[link=https://youtu.be/-qCKR6wy94U]https://youtu.be/-qCKR6wy94U[/link]
Who knew “medicine” could be so profitable?
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10 Replies
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It’s about time they came down on these Dr. Feelgoods and crooked Pharmacies.
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Quote from DICOM_Dan
It’s about time they came down on these Dr. Feelgoods and crooked Pharmacies.
Looks like the Sackler family will escape justice, courtesy of the Trump DOJ
[link=https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-sackler-familys-plan-to-keep-its-billions]https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-sackler-familys-plan-to-keep-its-billions[/link]
The Sacklers may be embattled, but they have hardly given up the fight. And a bankruptcy court in White Plains, it turns out, is a surprisingly congenial venue for the family to stage its endgame. Behind the scenes, lawyers for Purdue and its owners have been quietly negotiating with [link=https://www.newyorker.com/tag/donald-trump]Donald Trump[/link]s Justice Department to resolve all the various federal investigations in an overarching settlement, which would likely involve a fine but no charges against individual executives. In other words, the deal will be a reprise of the way that the company evaded comprehensive accountability in 2007. Multiple lawyers familiar with the matter told me that members of the Trump Administration have been pushing hard to finalize the deal before Election Day. The Administration will likely present such a settlement as a major victory against Big Pharmaand as another promise kept to Trumps base.
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Purdue had assembled a team of high-powered attorneys, including Mary Jo White, the former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York; [b]Rudolph Giuliani, the former New York City mayor; [/b]and Howard Shapiro, the former general counsel of the F.B.I. According to former officials involved in the case, Purdues lawyers persuaded the political leadership in the Bush Justice Department to scuttle the prosecution.
According to three attorneys familiar with the dynamics inside the Justice Department, career line prosecutors have pushed to sanction Purdue in a serious way, and have been alarmed by efforts by the departments political leadership to soften the blow. Should that happen, it will mark a grim instance of Purdues history repeating itself: a robust federal investigation of the company being defanged, behind closed doors, by a coalition of Purdue lawyers and political appointees. And it seems likely, as was also the case in 2007, that this failure will be dressed up as a success: a guilty plea from the company, another fine.
If such a deal is struck, it is probable that no Purdue executives will face felony charges. This week, two Democratic U.S. senatorsMaggie Hassan, of New Hampshire, and Sheldon Whitehouse, of Rhode Islandsent [link=https://www.whitehouse.senate.gov/download/letter-to-doj-on-purdue-settlement-talks]a letter[/link] to Barr citing DOJs history of leniency with Purdue and expressing concern that the department will once again let connected lawyers obtain a settlement that does not adequately address the harms caused by the company.
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FnA. Why not just give up regular jobs like doctor or PACS person. There’s so much more money to be maid in white collar crime and so little consequence.
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Judge throws out settlement.
[link=https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/16/health/purdue-pharma-opioid-settlement.html]https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/16/health/purdue-pharma-opioid-settlement.html[/link]A federal judge on Thursday evening unraveled a painstakingly negotiated settlement between Purdue Pharma and thousands of state, local and tribal governments that had sued the maker of the prescription painkiller OxyContin for the companys role in the opioids epidemic, saying that the plan was flawed in one critical area.
The judge, Colleen McMahon of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, said that the settlement, part of a restructuring plan for Purdue approved in [link=https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/01/health/purdue-sacklers-opioids-settlement.html]September[/link] by a bankruptcy judge, should not go forward because it releases the companys owners, members of the billionaire Sackler family, from liability in civil opioids-related cases.-
Youre not one to withhold judgment Frumi. Do you find this good or bad? I dont think the Sacklers should be able to avoid civil liability. Theres always trade offs in these deals though.
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What some criminals understand, don’t rob the local 7-11’s cash register. You will be arrested, lose any money you had and go to prison for a long time, maybe hard time & when you get out you have nothing but a prison record.
However, if you are a good white collar criminal – like the Sacklers or Michael Milken and so many others (banks in 2008 crash), you will pay a lot of $ for excellent representation (all from your ill-gotten gains) if you are even charged, if you get convicted you will go to a comfortable “farm” prison for a short period of time & when you get out you will still have a substantial portion of your ill-gotten gains for your own. In the case of the Sacklers, there is no prison term & you still have Billion$ in your accounts even after paying that traffic ticket of a fine.
Lesson: If you are going to be a drug pusher, do it big time & do it “legally” like the Sacklers did.
Another interesting thing, compare the Oxy epidemic to the crack epidemic. Crack dealers should have sold Oxy not crack. And wrong customers to boot, no one cares about minority communities’ drug abuse problem.
I used to enjoy walking through the Sackler Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Amazing what you can do if you are a good criminal who does cultural philanthropy.
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I don’t think the Sacklers should be able to avoid civil [i]or crimi9nal[/i] liability if that’s the way the case goes.
The original settlement was a travesty. Let’s hope it goes better this time around. The original decision was almost as disgusting as Epsteins first review in Florida.-
Quote from dergon
I don’t think the Sacklers should be able to avoid civil [i]or crimi9nal[/i] liability if that’s the way the case goes.
The original settlement was a travesty. Let’s hope it goes better this time around. The original decision was almost as disgusting as Epsteins first review in Florida.
Agree. Is there a risk that the next deal is worse? Hope not.-
Only if they hold out until 2025 when Trump Attorney General Rudy Giuliani trades a new settlement for a case of mondavi
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[h1][b]Supreme Court Blocks OxyContin Settlement[/b][/h1]
The Supreme Court on Thursday blocked a nationwide settlement with OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma that would shield members of the Sackler family who own the company from civil lawsuits over the toll of opioids, the [link=https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-opioid-crisis-purdue-bankruptcy-bd417e036d9f6db4b2916fdfbdb56252?taid=64d54326364c310001c6e7fc&utm_campaign=TrueAnthem&utm_medium=AP&utm_source=Twitter]AP[/link] reports.
The justices agreed to a request from the Biden administration to put the brakes on an agreement reached last year with state and local governments. In addition, the high court will hear arguments before the end of the year over whether the settlement can proceed.
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